Wood Rat

The video shows a wood rat climbing upon her home to place a stick on her pile.

http://ebhawley.jalbum.net/Wood%20Rat/

      Wood rats build their nests under prickly pear and other cacti, or underneath dead trees, remaining safe from the local predators, such as coyotes. They eat plant material, including the cacti. Often, I have seen the bites on the cactus leaves as I hiked around the countryside, and wondered until now which little creature of God munched on them. Curiosity compelled me to install a camera.

       The day before, noting an unusual pile of sticks and pieces of cow patties, I stopped to take a closer look. The sticks, twigs, and pieces of patties lay in an unusual position. At first I thought of the flooding that went throughout the area last year and the year before. During the heavy rains, tree trunks and other large objects stood against debris floating in the water; the debris formed a pile against them much like the one I studied and pictured below. Something about this pile, though, did not allow me to walk by it, for it did not appear to be caused by high waters.

     As I approached the pile, two small creatures hurried inside it through a couple of several entryways. Aha! Rodents lived in there. Above their home and in the crook of the dead tree, I noted a number of sticks laid in an organized way upon the branch, as we can see in the picture below.

      At the top of the dead tree, in a hole, branches of sage and other twigs lay as if in storage (below).

     See the nice article about the wood rat at the Mammals of Texas - Online Edition.