Rats are too smart

I think I have the Rats of NIMH in my garden. 

I got a live trap to try to catch the rats that hang out in the compost bin. I wear gloves when I reset it, to hopefully keep my scent off. And I know rats are smart. But this stuff just started to get unbelievable. I started keeping track of what these rats have done. Then I stopped keeping track because it never ended. 

Something fell against the catch, so the door couldn't shut. The rats somehow knew that it was blocked, because they finally went into the trap to steal the food. 

I fixed the trap and put new bait in. And they somehow got in without triggering the catch. 

Then somehow they managed to trigger the trap without getting caught in it. 

Then I found a bird in the trap. I let the poor thing out, and reset it. 

Then, once again, the rats got the bait without triggering it.

Then it caught another bird.

And another. 

So, I stopped setting the rat trap. I don't want to traumatize out native songbird population by locking them away for part of the day before I find them and let them out.