It's pretty disheartening. I've been trying to turn the Goose Paddock ( now free of geese but the name has stuck) into a haven for birds. It was set up to be fox-proof when we moved in, and I have spent a lot of time keeping it that way...fixing holes, repairing breaks, improving the hot wires....

But with the long dry period we appear to be coming out of, we ran out of feed and I opened it up for my sheep. In doing that, somehow a wombat got in and made it home. Like most wombats it has dug a few different burrows. The diggings are fresh and the telltale cubic wombat poo marking the territory are parked at strategic places.

Which is fine, there's about 3 acres enclosed in that paddock, which should be enough territory you would think, and I like wombats.

But this one is killing me. It has dug, in a couple of weeks, 7 holes under and through the fencing, totally destroying its viability as a bird sanctuary. The fence was buried into the ground, heavy-gauged hex-wire. Where the holes are its been dug out of the ground. In doing that it has bent the wire, crumpled it it up and wrecked the tensioning of the fence. It doesn't want to bend back into shape, and with the tension gone its easy to pull back out. I know because I tried straightening the wire and pushing it back into the hole, then filling the hole on both sides of the fence with big rocks. Shortly after that the wombat would simply roll the rocks out of the hole and re-dig.

Hole under the fence decorated with wombat poo. Not the rock...the poo is at 2 o'clock from the rock, on the other side of the fence.

Refolding and then re-unfolding the wire has stressed it and its starting to snap.

For a metre on either side of the holes the mesh has been pulled out of the ground. While I can poke it back in, it has nothing like the seal f the undamaged sections, and without digging a trench and properly reburying it, it is easy enough to pull it out again.

I then tried cutting small pieces of similar gauged wire, and then first with rocks tried plugging the holes again. I have now reached the stage of lacing new pieces of mesh to the fence and filling the hole with quick setting concrete.

While that has prevented that spot from being dug out again, the wombat simply moves sideways and digs another hole, additionally weakening the integrity of the fence.

Further on it is obvious the wombat has directly charged the fence. The wire has been stretched into a wombat shaped point, which has started to pull the mesh off the fence, as well as pulling it out of the ground. Dorper sheep are renowned for messing with fences, and my sheep have used the wombat's initial efforts and have pushed through the fence creating a wide hole, crushing the mesh down. It'll be a lot of work to repair that.

Hole smashed through the fence. The tell-tall bits of sheep fleece stuck to the barbed wire tell me that the sheep have used this gap.

At this stage I am almost out of ideas. The constant repair is just not viable in that if I miss a hole and it is open overnight a fox or cat can wipe out whatever birds had thought it was a good spot to nest.

I have read about wombat gates....a hanging, swinging gate made of heavy steel. In theory its too heavy for a fox to push open, but a wombat can charge through it. The idea is you set the gate up on the wombat trail, so it follows its normal track and just punches through the hanging gate.

Which is fine if there's only one entrance. Over the last few weeks there have been seven entrances, all marked with fresh wombat poo. All on different parts of the paddock fences. There's not one single trail to deal with.