There's a devil in my garden

And he is eating my bantams.



"I'd rather have men in pink coats than Stourton"

 

As if life isn't hard enough with polecats, grey squirrels (thank you USA), badgers, stray dogs, feral cats, buzzards and weasels, we now have a fox, or, to be more precise, a Daddy Fox and a Mummy Fox.

I phrased it in this manner especially for readers of a nervous temperament.

 Dog fox and  vixen - for the more anthropomorphically challenged.

Now that fox hunting has been banned by an Act of Parliament (because those politicians and townies just can't bear to think of poor little foxy woxy being chased by naughty doggies. Pity about the aborted babies though), the fox population has rocketed and they are now as common as rabbits.

What to do?

I can no longer shoot the blighters as I've surrendered my shotgun licence (my Church of Wales farming neighbours are sensitive about an orthodox Catholic who owns a shotgun living next door to them, I can't think why).

Poisoning is illegal and indiscriminate.

But a solution has been found - and it does not involve late night rituals with bell, book and candle.

All it requires is a simple transistor radio - playing 24/7 as they say.

Placed beneath an upturned bucket to protect it from the elements I have found that Radio Four is particularly effective at keeping the varmints at bay.

And when Ed Stourton broadcasts of a Sunday morning, I have noticed that the whole countryside falls into a state of frightened silence.

If only dear Ed was on radio 52/365 the Welsh countryside would be rid of badgers, weasels, foxes and the like for good.

I think I might put it to Ed as a novel way of creating a new income stream....but, on second thoughts, maybe not.