Visitors to the bird-table

 

I'll explain the picture later.

I thought that the birds were surprisingly fond of the fat balls (a product name which has always made me snigger childishly). But no, they could not have stuffed thirty down their little mass in a month, and one night i saw an adolescent rat dangling off the ball-holder (fnah) and realised what had been happening.

There were three half-grown rats that came out if you watched them from behind the curtain. Very good climbers, and hungry.

So what to do? Rats, on my bird table? No. It's a bird table, where the robins eat and kvetch. Not for rats. But then I did have a pang of speciesist regret. Why feed the hungry birds but not the rats? No good answer except maybe I don't like rats and I do like birds. Call me bigoted. Ratphobic.

But I was half-hearted at first and rather sorry for the ratties. But I couldn't afford their ravening hunger very well I thought, and they might scare off the birds, so I have made my first play in the game.

The picture shows silver foil wrapped around the bottom two feet of the post, plus there is a tempting display of fat balls to make them try. I've also pruned back the branches that some of then were using as a trapeze access to the table.

I will report back on their response but it may take a little while as I have been reliably informed by a professional exterminator that rats are highly 'neophobic', so if something changes in the environment they, er, smell a rat.

And finally, i have to report a tragedy last week which puts me a little more on the rats' side. I was sitting on the couch when a heard a kerfuffle outside (and a bit of a shriek) and saw a large tortoiseshell cat walking off with one of the adolescents in its jaws. So probably the food will go a bit more slowly anyway, whatever happens.

And if the rats overcome my efforts I welcome suggestions for round two.

A plastic lid around the post?

Then barbed wire?

Electric fence?

Bring on your best ideas.

P