Bunnies of steel

Published on Saturday 2 June 2007 01:02

All of a sudden we have got rabbits and magpies. Well, hundreds of rabbits but, so far, only one magpie. One day we didn't have any and now, here they are. They must have crept up when I wasn't looking. If I think about it I probably did register a bunny in the Curling Pond Wood at the back end of the year.

But I should have known better than to imagine it would go away or a fox would get it. Where there is one rabbit there are hundreds and before you can say Flopsy Bunnies the place is rotten with them. And so it is.

In the space of what seems like only a few weeks my neighbour has lost a swathe of grass about 20 yards wide and a quarter of a mile long all the way down the side of his wood. The bunnies are comfortably accommodated in a south-facing bank in the edge of the trees across the ditch that runs down the side of the wood.

What was a couple of holes and a few scratchings is in danger of becoming a major warren, if it isn't already. The grass looks like the well-mown rough of a golf course, evenly trimmed to a couple of inches, about a foot shorter than the rest of the park, which has yet to be grazed. Once you see evidence of grass being eaten by rabbits it's all too late.

I feel a bit guilty about this infestation because although it is not my wood, my grass or my bunnies, the only weapon our neighbour has ever owned is an air rifle rather like the ones at travelling fairs, which fire 45 degrees off the target. He used it to shoot the feral pigeons which sat in his steading rafters and defecated on the barley waiting for collection after harvest.

He gave up the gun and now relies on us for pigeon clearance. But it is years since we saw a rabbit this close to home so the question of "doing something about them" had never really arisen before.

Considering we use his fields like a private park, something will have to be done. This infestation would not have happened if the underkeeper had been at home. But he, second son, has given up keepering, mainly because he is quite sociable and keepering isn't .

He now seems to have become a Polish decorator in charge of a squad of ex-ship painters from Gdansk and has been given the keys to the office moped so that he can nip through the London traffic from one irate customer to the next, assuring them their basement flat will be finished in time for the Albanian au pair to move in next week.

He fibs with huge charm.

I would have taken a pop at the bunnies myself, but have rather foolishly taken the telescopic sights off my .22 - he won't let me use his - because I thought I would put on a more powerful scope which someone must have bought, borrowed or discarded and has been sitting in the cupboard for years. Getting it on is relatively simple. Getting it to shoot straight is quite impossible, which may be the reason it has been in the cupboard for as long as I can remember.

Fortunately the under-keeper is back next week with a friend for what appears to be a carefully organised pogrom on Scotland's vermin and, I hope, roe buck as we ate the last haunch from the freezer last weekend.

The other horror is the appearance of a magpie. Like the rabbits we have never had one until now. The garden is hoaching with nesting birds whose eggs it must be plundering at will. But I am tempted to leave it alone because maybe it has a role to play in the scheme of things. I shall probably be accused of becoming a closet member of the RSPB. My cousin is appalled at the idea of not killing it and keeps trying to give me his Larsen trap to catch it alive. Probably time to go fishing. and ignore it for a while.

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