This morning I confronted my nemesis: the White-winged Chough.

One of a pack of them was caught in our carefully constructed defences in the vegie patch. I’m ashamed to admit that I felt a slight thrill to see a Chough in such a predicament.

Most of the pack flew off shrieking; all but one, who stayed behind whistling and crying encouragingly as the trapped bird flapped around inside the net.

When I told my partner that a Chough was trapped, he immediately responded: ‘Where’s that big stick?’ Feelings about Choughs are running high around here lately.

Of course we’d never dream of harming a bird, even if they do kill plants by scratching away mulch. In their quest for insects and worms Choughs expose the soil and roots to heat, and sometimes trample or entirely unearth plants.

It’s no good trying to garner sympathy from friends in town. They just look at us blankly whenever we tell them that the Choughs have been at it again. But those who reside close to forests – and who don’t keep pets – know Choughs as regular invaders of their plots.

I’ve done my best to Chough-proof the garden, erecting chicken wire around mulched trees and embedding dozens of bamboo skewers around plants, with the pointy ends facing upwards and outwards. But no matter how deeply I plant them, the clever Choughs invariably pull them out. The skewers have been an abject failure.

Most have now been removed and put into storage where they await further use; perhaps as part of a defence that also includes springs, pulleys and lead weights… or something. Those that remain are the same colour as the mulch and I’ve pricked my hands and fingers on them more times than I’d have thought possible.  

During this hellishly hot weather, it’s vitally important that the soil retains as much moisture as possible if it’s to support any garden at all.

So to protect the mulch from foraging Choughs, I’ve devised an arrangement of old oven and barbeque grills, placed over the mulch and weighted down with rocks.

It’s been way too hot to spend much time in the garden, hence this highly unattractive, but expeditious, solution. So far it seems to be working, although at the slightest hint of a Chough call I still rush outside to defend the beds, often to find that it’s only a couple of Crimson Rosellas larking about.

I’m beginning to wonder whether we should try to garden here at all, confronted with not only Choughs but also shallow clay soil, low rainfall, possums and wallabies that eat new growth, echidnas that dig up garden beds, falling branches, thousands of eucalypt leaves… sometimes I feel an overwhelming desire just to let it all go and move into town where most of these challenges don’t exist.

But then I marvel at the golden light over the paddocks before sunset… and lie in bed and watch the stars glitter like jewels through the trees… and breathe in the sweet fragrance of the early morning bush.

And once again I’m reminded of my Chough mantra: ‘They were here first… they were here first…’