Thank you all for your suggestions and experiences. I can rule out some of the suggested culprits. We don't have coyotes, possums or raccoons in this country and no moose, cockatoos nor yet koalas. There are no wild deer in this area either. The nature of the fencing around the garden (evergreen hedge about ten feet high, with wire fencing in places) rules out anything larger than about fox (or very small kid) size (though kids could open the gate. Maybe foxes could too – they’re said to be clever, aren’t they?  ). Or something with wings.

I took SteveB’s advice and did a more detailed investigation and I have some progress to report. I found a faeces dropping nearby that I can’t identify. I looked up fox droppings and this doesn’t really look like them. It’s an amorphous mass about the area of a CD, grayish-brown and the consistency of a smooth paté. It could be a dog dropping. Do dogs eat apples? Would one dog take about 40 apples (and leave none behind on the ground)?

Anyway, SteveB, thank you for the laugh, preceded by shock, that I got when I read the following lines in your post (about the coyote), the shock being due to the position of the line break:

… I found out later that it had eaten a turkey, a cat, and a kid

goat …


Thank you all,
Hector.