Why.......

[emamum]

we were in town today and ty was eating a pack of poppets (chocolatey ball things) and he dropped one... he was wetting himself laughing at a pigeon trying to catch it... we have invented a new sport... pigeon football!

[West Ender]

Hang on a minute. Now these feral pigeons (I presume that's what you mean by flying rats, not the fat, pink-chested wood pigeons that poo in my garden) are doing us a favour. When I worked in Warrington I often walked up the main shopping street at lunchtime. There were 2 chip shops, a MacDonalds and a Burger King on that street. The punters from these shops were quite happy to dispose of their unwanted chips, bits of burger etc. on the street and the debris lay around - but not for long.

The feral pigeons would home in on any tasty morsels lying on the pavements. If a bag of chips had been discarded on the ground next to a litter bin the pidges were there to clean it up. Well thank goodness they did because, otherwise, the rats certainly would. My office backed on to a row of restaurants/fast food outlets and the back alley between us was over-run with rats that lived well on the contents of their dustbins. I well remember a warm sunny day when we watched dozens of rats, including baby ones, playing at the back of our car-park. Now I'm not anti-rat as a mammalian species, but as a Health Hazzard give me the pigeon, any day, as opposed to the rat.