Rat pack have now packed up and disappeared

AS anyone who regularly feeds wild birds in the garden will know, all that food can attract unwanted guests.

Leftovers eventually encourage rodents, and over time it is hard to avoid a visit or two from rats.

Not putting out more than the birds can eat; regularly relocating handouts; suspending feeders off the ground and avoiding food being left out at night may all help. But once the rats are wise to a source of food they will keep coming back for more.

In my garden the feeders at the far end have in recent months attracted rats. I know because they became quite brazen, openly feeding in daylight beneath the bird table and some of the adults got to be pretty large in size – though not, as rodents go, quite on the same scale as beavers (see left).

And so a dilemma. Turning a blind eye with a live and let live attitude is all very well, but one runs the risk of becoming overrun, and no one wants to be sharing their garden with a multitude of vermin, especially as they carry diseases.

I own neither a rat-catching terrier, nor a killer cat, nor a welltrained hawk, so was weighing up options. Trapping is preferable, given rodenticides can potentially poison other wildlife, however rats are wary and not easy to catch. The most sensible alternative is to stop feeding the birds, which I’m happy to do once winter is at an end.

However, it seems that, mysteriously, nature has found a way and my problem has been inexplicably solved. The rats have all... gone. If not some rat lurgy then I’m assuming an obliging predator tracked down their burrow and has polished them off. I’ll now be keeping my eyes peeled for a well-fed stoat.