I didn’t especially want to hurt them, because it was only the banksia tree, although I would have enjoyed a direct hit. I am, however, potentially murderous in protecting my fruit trees in the backyard, so thanks, Anne, for the tip about loose netting. Other protections I’ve been considering include spraying the trees with a red-hot chilli concoction and running the tape of an electric fence over and around a tree, and I’m so delighted by mental images of the intended result that I wonder if revenge isn’t in the mix somewhere.

Anne Williams is not impressed. My hosing the flying foxes is unethical, she tells me.

Unethical?

‘‘Yes, because it’s not very nice. How would you like someone to turn a hose on you while you were walking down the street?’’

They probably would if I was stealing their fruit.

‘‘But the flying fox doesn’t know it’s stealing fruit!’’

Mrs Williams is the Native Animal Trust Fund’s co-ordinator for orphaned flying foxes and she has a soft spot for them – ‘‘It’s the one native animal that looks you in the eye when you’re talking to them. It’s one on one.’’ So I didn’t dwell on more permanent solutions that occur to me when I find my persimmons and figs destroyed.

She is promoting the use of light-gauge shadecloth to protect trees from flying foxes, either on a frame over the tree or draped over the branches, largely because the shadecloth, unlike netting, does not entangle flying foxes and other animals. Mrs Williams says, too, that the shadecloth, put in place and pegged to the ground after the fruit has formed will keep possums, birds and, a real bonus, fruit fly at bay. She suggests we cover only the lower parts of the tree, allowing the flying foxes access to the fruit in the higher branches, but I’ll need intensive re-education before that happens at my place.