Rabbits

Oh dear! What to do about them? First they ate all my newly planted french beans, leaving little stubby bare stalks sticking up.

 Next they gained entrance to the fruit cage, which as well as being home to fruit, is also the chosen place for various veg. and demolished three rows of beetroot. Then we had mysterious activity in the poly-tunnel. 
Now the poly-tunnel is where I am growing tomatoes, cucumbers, climbing beans, carrots, basil and various salads and where I imagined my plants were safe from the depredations of nature. Then I noticed a large-ish hole in one corner of the plastic close to the ground and thought we had somehow caught it with some garden tools or machinery. Then the diggings appeared: obvious upheavals of the soil underneath the tomatoes, but no sign of a hole. Was it moles? Was it rats? It didn't seem quite like the work of either. We mended the hole with gaffer tape only to find the next morning, the gaffer tape chewed away. So again we mended it, really well this time. Again it was chewed away. We were mystified.
The strange thing was, there was no sign of any damage to the vegetables and no sign of a rabbit hole, so rabbits were not suspected.
Then, one morning - a baby bunny was found sitting outside the poly-tunnel door! On seeing me it fled into the tunnel and I caught it hiding under the cucumbers. We shall draw a veil over what happened next, but Kanto enjoyed rabbit for breakfast.
Then we saw them! The holes! Two unmistakeable rabbit hole that had definitely not been there before, had appeared under the tomato plants. This was followed by more baby bunny appearances, but this time the poor little things were definitely not well and soon expired.

So, I did a little research. Evidently rabbit mothers, when making their maternity burrow, will hide the entrance by kicking back the excavated dirt. This rabbit had chosen my poly-tunnel as the perfect place to bring her babies into the world and had chewed her way in. She had given birth down the hole then gone out in the evening to feed. On returning home she found her way barred by gaffer tape
and, frantic to get back to her babies had chewed through the tape - twice!
The holes had only appeared once the babies were big enough to emerge into the world.
Why they were ill I do not know, but I must plead guilty to poking the hose down the hole and trying to evict any residents with a deluge of water: after all, it was them or me! But with no result. So it might have been delayed drowning effects. Brutal I know , but nature is red in tooth and claw after all. As there are other healthy rabbits around, it can't have been the awful myxomatosis. 
The odd thing was that not a leaf of any of my poly-tunnel plants had been nibbled. It's almost as if they knew that they should not cause trouble on their home pitch or they might be noticed. 
If you are appalled by all of this, reflect on what you might have done, having spent a load of money on a poly-tunnel and a whole year of effort preparing the soil and growing your plants, only to find yourself within a whisker of losing the lot!
Anyway, they have gone and I am wiser and more admiring of the native skills of rabbits!