I can’t feed garden birds any more after one disgusting problem

The stench. Oh god, the stench. It was like a barrel of rotting fish had been dumped somewhere in my garden. The moment I opened the patio doors and stepped outside to go top up the bird feeder, it was like a rendering plant had been set up next door.

Turns out, despite my valiant efforts to keep the garden birds fed all year round, my obsession with attracting finches, robins and various other winged favourites to my outdoor space had backfired in spectacular fashion because of one glaring drawback.

Turns out, my bird feeder had been attracting rats. And walking down to the bottom of the garden, I found a very big - and very dead - rodent covered with wiggling, feasting maggots.

It feels like the gardening gods have been against me from the start on this. First, I had to abandon using a flat bird table because the RSPB raised concerns that it could be spreading disease affecting bird populations.

Next, I had to abandon putting birdseed out, even in a safer upright feeder, after the RSPB warned that seeds in summer could carry the same risk, no matter the feeder type.

So I swapped to purely using suet and mealworms, in an upright feeder, both on the RSPB-approved list for summer feeding. The rats can’t get to it, nor can the squirrels, but the issue is that I’m just not very tidy about it.

The RSPB also encourages gardeners to ground feed as well as use feeders, so I’ve deliberately been careless about this, allowing some of the feed to go onto the grass below.

But even a handful of dropped mealworms and a few bits of suet spillage - inevitable when you’re pouring a bag into a feeder - is attracting rats scavenging these off the ground.

What’s more, I’d been keeping a giant bag of seed inside my greenhouse. Despite this being a closed greenhouse, I discovered, aghast, that the bag had been chewed into and piles of seed were missing. The rats have been here.

And here I am, on a sunny Sunday morning, scraping a rotting, fetid rat carcass off my lawn, probably after it was killed by a fox or a cat during its bird seed stealing, while trying not to be sick and cursing my own stupidity.

I plan to rebound from this rodent ignominy and find somewhere inside the house to store the feed in a thick plastic container and top up the feeder indoors. But even the feeder may have to be swapped out for a plastic one instead of a mesh one, so its gentle swaying in the breeze won’t spill seed for the rats to scoop up.

For now, I’m focusing on feeding birds with the garden instead. I cut the netting off the redcurrants - I have to be honest with myself, our house’s previous owners planted them and I’ve never really cared for these bitter little berries which take an age to pick. This has already borne fruit, as I’ve spotted several little birdies hopping in to grab one, but the rats won’t eat them. And this is what many experts like Gardeners World say is the best approach: plant a garden for the birds to eat from naturally instead of relying on piles of seed and run the risk of unwelcome visitors.