morning of mourning for the young Simba beans

I found nothing but itty-bitty stems this morning. Today is a sad day. 

Grown from seeds given by a friend, the Simba beans were planted out just yesterday. They were the first batch of seeds that looked so full of life in its punnet. Also planted out was the northeaster climbing beans, the last beans from a seed swap - all the others had failed, but these were growing with vigour. I had been misting them twice daily for 3 weeks. I even took care to cover them with the mesh frames. 

But one must not let this dampen one's spirits; one must learn and move on. Lessons learnt from this are:
    - the Creature (this shall be its name now) is probably not a bird, as I had previously thought

    - it only took these new beans and left the existing snaking beans alone

    - it had also eaten amaranth and chilli (see previous post)

    - I guess it eats everything it takes, as there's no mess left behind. No scat has been found either

    - I've also noticed that some ends of the grape vine have been nipped 

Could it be a rat or a possum? Or many of either?

Could it be something that comes from the ground? (I doubt it but it could be possible, I guess)

The way I had arranged the mesh frames created an angled tunnel accessible via the two ends. I've changed up the configuration and put in a bait seedling (a Simba), to figure out the size of the creature and see what kind of manoeuvres it's capable of. 

**update 11/10. They didn't take the Simba bait, but they did help themselves to the Dragon tongue beans! Cheeky buggers. I think a stakeout is necessary.

**update 12/10. It took the Simba bait, and also a row of the snake beans closest to the fence-wall. Perhaps it lives or hides in the wall-thickness gap.

**update 14/10. They nibbled on the carrot tops and the regrowing amaranth (that was under the covers! but avoided the chilli, for now). Leaves of the dragon tongue bean plants are gone, leaving only a few stems. New strategy in place: block the bottom gap between the soil surface and the fence with planks and egg cartons.