Helena leaves the door to our secure home open during the day and evening, closing us in at night. She may think it curious that, given the freedom of her house, we choose to stay within the room in which our home is located. Even more curious is that each of us hangs out no more than 2 meters away from our home, be it Rema, in the blanket which lies against our home; The White One, who lies with either Rema, in the blanket, or under the sofa throw, on or under the sofa, which is located only centimetres away from our home, with me.
The following abstract provides some interesting insights into the activities of our country cousins, which all sounds quite exhausting. I wonder how they would find life living with Helena.
Abstract
(1) Radio-tracking techniques were used to study movements of rats on arable land. The mean range length for ten female rats was 340 m and for seven male rats 660 m. (2) Movement occurred primarily along hedgerows which provided cover, but several individuals occasionally crossed open ground, covering distances of up to 500 m without approaching cover. Most of the movements observed were between homesites and known food sources up to 500 m away. (3) Although the rats frequently changed their homesites, there was no noticeable tendency to move them towards recognized food sources in the area; changes of homesite were apparently random occurrences or were related to encounters with other rats. Males and females changed their homesites on average once every 7 and 14 days respectively. (4) The rats studied became active soon after sunset but generally did not move away from their homes until about one hour later. Peak activity occurred 4-5 h after sunset. Six of the twenty-one rats studied were active at times during daylight and one was predominantly diurnal.
Romula
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