Yelvertoft
Rabbit Fan
Hi there,
Firstly, an apology to those who may find this subject matter to be in poor taste. Sorry if it's a bit much for a Sunday lunchtime but it is nature in the raw.
I am curious to know what has been visiting my garden for the past few weeks and leaving its "calling card". I began noticing droppings being left on my lawn now and again in late August. Since then I've had increasingly regular visits and increasingly large numbers of deposits left. The circumstances are:
Always left overnight - I've never seen what's doing this
Visits now probably 2 nights out of every three
Leaves between 1 and 4 deposits
There are two "styles", as shown below.
About 70% of the time, the scat is like the first picture below with a high seed/berry/bud content. The first picture shows a dropping that's about as big as they get, it's about 6 inches long. They are normally slightly smaller.
The remainder of the time, they are like the second picture with a much firmer texture and a high fur content. The second type of scat is typically about 4 inches long.
Some mornings I will scout the lawn and find that both types have been left in the same night. This suggests that there is more than one animal, they move in groups and have a varied diet. The high fur content style seems to be "classic" fox scat from the research I've already done, but the seed/berry stuff doesn't match fox.
There has been a noticeable reduction in bird activity in recent weeks and whatever it is had got what I suspect had been a wood pigeon from the grey feathers that were left. There have also been odd bits of fur left that were probably rabbit. Both pigeon and rabbit are very common locally.
There have been no stray dog sightings, and I'm sure if it was dog, it wouldn't be so nocturnal and I'd have seen it by now. My partner has had cats in the past and assures me it's not cat droppings. We've had muntjac deer in the garden before but it's only once every few years, not almost daily. Badgers, I'm led to believe use specific latrine areas, wheras these droppings are scattered in a wide area across my reasonably sized lawn. It's far too big for hedgehog, and not the right shape/content either. The only likely candidate I'm left with is fox. We haven't heard any fox yelping recently, but they have been heard in the past.
Any experts out there? Is it fox, or something else?
Answers on an electron to the usual address....
Regards,
Duncan.
Firstly, an apology to those who may find this subject matter to be in poor taste. Sorry if it's a bit much for a Sunday lunchtime but it is nature in the raw.
I am curious to know what has been visiting my garden for the past few weeks and leaving its "calling card". I began noticing droppings being left on my lawn now and again in late August. Since then I've had increasingly regular visits and increasingly large numbers of deposits left. The circumstances are:
Always left overnight - I've never seen what's doing this
Visits now probably 2 nights out of every three
Leaves between 1 and 4 deposits
There are two "styles", as shown below.
About 70% of the time, the scat is like the first picture below with a high seed/berry/bud content. The first picture shows a dropping that's about as big as they get, it's about 6 inches long. They are normally slightly smaller.
The remainder of the time, they are like the second picture with a much firmer texture and a high fur content. The second type of scat is typically about 4 inches long.
Some mornings I will scout the lawn and find that both types have been left in the same night. This suggests that there is more than one animal, they move in groups and have a varied diet. The high fur content style seems to be "classic" fox scat from the research I've already done, but the seed/berry stuff doesn't match fox.
There has been a noticeable reduction in bird activity in recent weeks and whatever it is had got what I suspect had been a wood pigeon from the grey feathers that were left. There have also been odd bits of fur left that were probably rabbit. Both pigeon and rabbit are very common locally.
There have been no stray dog sightings, and I'm sure if it was dog, it wouldn't be so nocturnal and I'd have seen it by now. My partner has had cats in the past and assures me it's not cat droppings. We've had muntjac deer in the garden before but it's only once every few years, not almost daily. Badgers, I'm led to believe use specific latrine areas, wheras these droppings are scattered in a wide area across my reasonably sized lawn. It's far too big for hedgehog, and not the right shape/content either. The only likely candidate I'm left with is fox. We haven't heard any fox yelping recently, but they have been heard in the past.
Any experts out there? Is it fox, or something else?
Answers on an electron to the usual address....
Regards,
Duncan.