Well-fed

Adorable !

They are cute:-) And of course they know how to beg successfully;-)

I LOVE THEM !!

An excellent capture. Thank you for posting to FFF.

Wonderful capture and PIPs!

Admired in:
www.ipernity.com/group/tolerance

Thanks, everyone! They were _too_ tame, really--they can bite! It could be bad news if a little kid went to pick one up. They also often carry plague.

I didn't know about plague, not good at all!

Plague got to San Francisco sometime around 1900--an ironic consequence of faster transportation technology, as the rats didn't all die during the Pacific crossing! A human epidemic in S.F. was nipped in the bud, because the significance of rats & fleas was already understood, but the bacillus got into the local rodent population. From there it's gradually spread thruout much of the West. You'll see lots of warning signs around campgrounds, picnic areas, and so on. And, if you've been outside and start feeling very sick, particularly if you noticed rodents, don't delay seeing a doctor.
In one of his last published novels (ca. 1986) the late science-fiction writer and M.D. Alan E. Nourse described the outbreak of a mutant plague bacillus in the Pacific Northwest, and its subsequent global transmission via air travel. The thriller is called _The Fourth Horseman_ , the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse being pestilence, and it was ahead of its time! The general scenario Alan described is the stuff of serious disaster planning now. (However, he did tell me he made up the part about "dead rodent counts." ;)