Rats!

Cl(I have sought and received permission to post what is below.)
I am not allowed to broadcast that we have a rat.  I am hoping that seeing as we have two it might be different.  I actually call them hamsters based on a Fawlty Towers episode.  It is not calling a spade a spade, but no one believes we have hamsters anyway.
We think they have come from the back property which has chooks and birds.  We have “fly in and fly out” birds (ie we have feeders).  The trouble is, the hamsters seem to think we are feeding them when we feed the birds.  Now they don’t just like to eat the bird food, but they have taken to playing in our yard.
We have put bait in strategic hidden positions where birds never go but hamsters seem to love going.  One we know has met its demise, but they seem to be proliferating.  I give poor Merril a hard time painting a picture of a father ra…hamster not feeling well and gathering his family around him.  However we both know they need to be dealt with.
I bought an old fashioned rat trap.  Those things were scary to me before and they still are.  It is the spring mechanism on them I find disconcerting. The mechanism is so quick and powerful.  We had one go off while we were setting it up.  Fortunately none of us were impacted.  We have that thing in reserve at the moment.
The hamsters’ behaviour is fascinating.  Ok, I have too much time on my hands.  They seem to like to look at us as much as we like to look at them. But we don’t want to encourage them for obvious reasons, plus they attract something else that would see them as a tasty morsel.  We definitely don’t want to encourage them.
I get encouraged when I see the kookaburras in our tree getting bored (this was before the current “plague.”)  It really was a case of “there’s nothing to see here.” Besides my strength seems to be staring meaningfully into the middle distance.  Probably only one should do that. The kookaburras would stay a while and move on. In a previous property I had, I saw a kookaburra fly down from a tree and grab a snake that was crossing the property.
So, we are at war.  At the moment we are not winning, but we are confident it is just a matter of time.ick here to edit.