Today proved to be much more challenging than it first appeared, after having to chase rats around a park.

Yes, I had questioned if such a thing counts as journalism, but apparantly it does, since it's to do with gathering information about the rat-infested area of Sholing - a top story.

These rats have been in the area for over a year now, with residents up in arms over them swarming a park and moving out into the surrounding houses.

So what did we do to cover the story? Go around with a nearby resident and her four children rat hunting. Yes, that's right, rat hunting. Although we didn't technical call it a rat hunt, that's what it was, so for the purposes of this blog that's what I'll call it.

Again, Will was at hand with video camera and mic, Jo the photographer was also with us today and I was armed with my trusty notepad and pen. When we got to the park, about six rats ran from one bush to another. The four kids started getting all excited and shouting, scaring the rats off. You know what happened next - Jo was telling us to keep quiet so to not scare the rats off and miss her chance of capturing a clear photo. The irony of the situation was that Jo started panicking and couldn't handle the pressure of taking a picture of a rat, so stuck close to Will and myself. She changed to a longer lens so she didn't have to get close to one of the park's little vermin. Picture it - a nervous photographer, Will a journalist hurriedly moving the camera to try and film a rat running about when we found one and myself keeping an eye out for more of them.

After seeing about twenty rats, we reach the edge of a lake and the edge of the park. When spotting two rats on an island in the middle, it was to my humour and Jo's horror that they started swimming towards us. Yes, rats, with long tails and squeaky teeth were coming right for us. Luckily, this allowed us to get some great shots of them - but made some nearby ducks go a bit loopy. These ducks chased the rats away, then while still angered, came towards us, hissing into the air and right up to a poor little child with his grandmother, who just so happened to be walking past at the time, causing the child to start crying.

"What on earth is going on?," I think to myself. Since I've been at the Echo just under two days now, I've seen rats get attacked by ducks, a six foot iguana walked by its owner and children starting to throw sticks at the rats (to get them to move for the camera shots of course).
This creates quite the scene, so many residents walking around the park stop and I manage to grab some quotes from them for Will's article. Using shorthand is great for jotting down important notes quickly - one difficult task is asking for an older woman's age. Word of advise: don't overdo it.

And so, after an hour or so of the hunt, we had back to Zena's house (parent of the four children) for a brief interview. Then its back to the office and time to write the story up. Phew.

Signing off for now,
Dom Sacco,
Journalist and new-age rat hunter.