So I was weeding my potato bed and found what I thought was a clump of earth. Turned out someone had been caching picnic leftovers:
And when I say someone, I mean allotment fox. I had a word with S-who-hooked-me-up-with-the-allotment. "Oh yes, she said, and what's worse is, some people feed them. And there isn't anything we can do about that. And then you get rats."
So now I have an alternate theory. Allotment fox is trying to attract allotment rats so he can feed on fresh rat rather than manky old cocktail sausages and pork pies. Though I suspect that the ultimate benefactors will be my surprisingly savage allotment ants, as while foxes cache food, they also forget to to some back to it a lot of the time.
Still really tempted to get a trail camera up there. I've met allotment fox, allotment kites, allotment crows, allotment magpies, the robin-who-needs-your-worms, Allotment Cat 1 (Black & White, red collar) and Allotment Cat 2 (Handsome tabby, bit of a mover) who are sadly massive enemies of each other and also afeared of people (suspicion: they've been chased around for pooing on asparagus beds) plus sundry blackbirds, goldfinches and various little brown birds, but I do have badger suspicions because I have a nice trundle-path straight across my allotment, and I've seen torn-up grass suggestive of worm-hunting.
I haven't seen the rats, but I'm a realist. They will be there.
And when I say someone, I mean allotment fox. I had a word with S-who-hooked-me-up-with-the-allotment. "Oh yes, she said, and what's worse is, some people feed them. And there isn't anything we can do about that. And then you get rats."
So now I have an alternate theory. Allotment fox is trying to attract allotment rats so he can feed on fresh rat rather than manky old cocktail sausages and pork pies. Though I suspect that the ultimate benefactors will be my surprisingly savage allotment ants, as while foxes cache food, they also forget to to some back to it a lot of the time.
Still really tempted to get a trail camera up there. I've met allotment fox, allotment kites, allotment crows, allotment magpies, the robin-who-needs-your-worms, Allotment Cat 1 (Black & White, red collar) and Allotment Cat 2 (Handsome tabby, bit of a mover) who are sadly massive enemies of each other and also afeared of people (suspicion: they've been chased around for pooing on asparagus beds) plus sundry blackbirds, goldfinches and various little brown birds, but I do have badger suspicions because I have a nice trundle-path straight across my allotment, and I've seen torn-up grass suggestive of worm-hunting.
I haven't seen the rats, but I'm a realist. They will be there.
No comments:
Post a Comment