Warren and Kevin

The cry rings out regularly at our place:
What bastard ate my …

As in:
What bastard ate my raspberries?
What bastard ate my brand new daylilies?
What bastard got over the kitchen garden fence and ate my new and precious burgundy Scabiousa and white Achillea and half of the surviving dwarf nectarine?

Usually the answer is clear. It’s Warren.
Warren is any or all of the rabbits that lurk down the back. Other people have fairies at the bottom of their garden. I have Warren.
So almost every day, it’s “Warren, get the hell out of there!”
I don’t poison Warrens, I just shout a lot.

Then there’s Kevin, the collective name given to every possum in the place, ringtail or brushtail (it’s either Big Kev or Little Kev). They were named, may I just say, before the Kevin Ascendancy in Australia. Kevin may be guilty of ravaging the lemon tree last year, and since we’ve removed a whole lot of feral cherry plums we can probably expect more damage from hungry Kevins this summer.

Someone – possibly Kevin, or possibly cockatoos that have underestimated their own weight – has also been breaking shoots and branches off the roses in one garden bed. Not eating them, just snapping off the spindly growth – or, in one case, the entire top off a standard David Austin.

To stop the behaviour, you have to understand it, and that’s inexplicable. My current theory is that Creatures Unknown are landing awkwardly after leaping from nearby eucalypts, so I’ve run a light, one metre brush fence behind the bed to see if it helps protect them.

But the raspberry thieves were a mystery. These are inside the kitchen garden fence, and netted since the moment they flowered. And yet several of the higher fruit – my first ever raspberries – are half eaten, clearly pecked through the net, while some of the lower fruit have been picked quite cleanly.

So I crept out this morning to see a magpie sitting on the fence poking his long beak through the net.

Clearly my netting technique needs adjustment, and I now know not to plant anything too delicious next to the fence.
I may have to resort to a scarecrow.

As for Warren, there’s not much to be done. I can’t fence the whole block as it would cost more than the car. People have suggested various measures (coffee grounds, blood and bone) but nothing works except a fence. So the veggies and fruit trees are fenced but I’m buggered if I’m going to live with wire everywhere.

I have now conceded defeat and put up temporary wire fences in some areas - these are dead ugly but we just have to live with it for a season or so. Single specimens such as grevillea or westringia are bagged, which also protects them from frost. Once things grow bigger they seem beyond Warren’s terms of reference, although this does not apply to daylilies. Warren is partial to red daylilies. He hasn’t even nibbled on the yellow ones.

Happily, the kitten is a sworn enemy of Warren and even though he’s only a year old, seems to take his Lord of the Jungle duties very seriously. We quite often find bits of Warren scattered about, for which the kitten is applauded – except for the time we found Warren’s guts on the laundry floor. One wonders where the rest of Warren has gone. And then one decides not to ponder that matter too deeply.

I’m really rather Darwinian about this beast versus beast battle. The kitten wears a bell to alert birds of his presence and is locked up at night to protect Kevin. So far he seems to be only successful at catching Warren, although not fast enough for my liking.

And for my part, while an AK47 would be much more satisfying, shouting at Warren at least makes me feel better.