What the hell crapped in my yard?

What animal is using my yard for a toilet? I do not have a dog or a cat for many reasons, but one good one is so that I do not have to clean up after them. I have already been fighting a battle of over the years, having to clean up raccoon poop, just like they were my pets instead of the nuisances they are. Yet this new situation is striking in that the pile is in the front of the house, in a newly cleared area. Cleared because we had to get rid of a snow broken holly bush.

This view is from the front porch just outside the front door. No privacy for an animal, that I might imagine would be afraid of people.

We cleaned it up, and then put down a product intended to discourage foraging that I think is just red pepper flakes or an equivalent. The scat reappeared, and the animal continued to pile it on. My wife says fox, and I say raccoon. I hope it is not a dog or a human. Any coprologists out there want to speculate? And also offer advice to stop it.

Raccoon Coprology

I don't have dogs so I don't have to go around the yard and pick up their crap. Turns out there are other animals in the animal kingdom that defecate. (Everybody poops.) These photos document what appears to be raccoon scat all around the yard out back. The raccoon scat is just another sign, besides paw prints and sightings (1,2) that we have a very active raccoon population in the area.


I imagine myself as an 19th century natural philosopher trying to tease out the workings of science with these photographs of nature rather than a man taking pictures of raccoon scat. I encourage you to think similarly.



The problem with raccoon scat is that it can sometimes contain the roundworm parasite, Baylisascaris procyonis, which can invade the brain and eye in humans coming in contact with it, causing severe disease and death. Of course they were only 23 cases in 2003 so it is an exceedingly rare thing.


I suppose I will carefully clean it up and dispose of it. In order to rid myself of the problem I would have to sterilize my entire back yard, fill in the creek, and kill every raccoon. I think that I won't be doing that.




Too bad, If it was fossilized I could get $1000 a pop (or is that a poop) for it.






Any raccoon specialists or animal tracking specialists want to conform my suspicions on this and make recommendations?

My backyard - the raccoon highway

Almost every night just after the sun goes down, one or a family of raccoons walks on by to go from their homes down the creek to the house of one of my neighbors who feeds them up the creek. My backyard is in between and they must walk just past the corner of the sunroom where we usually hang out about that time.

Two nights ago we saw what I must assume was mom and her young, two raccoon kits, but I was too shocked and unprepared to take a picture. Last night I was prepared with a snack of bread right at the corner to get them to stay awhile and with a plan to turn on the lights to get the right lighting for my unsuitable Kodak camera. I will not share with you the many blank or flash filled shots of practice, just this one shot which is recognizably a raccoon. In spite of all of our movement in the sunroom, it didn't run away until it came back to get its piece of bread.

I would have preferred to get a shot of mom and the kits as they scampered over the rocks and climbed trees, but that shot will probably never happen until I get a night vision camera and build a raccoon blind to hide in. I am not that serious about wildlife photography, yet.

More animal visitors on Shellpot Creek

Finally I have visual evidence that it was probably a raccoon that visited and left footprints over the winter and not a homunculus, as I had previously thought. Here he is trekking across the backyard to go to the neighbors yard where treats are left out for him.






The same day, the duck that lives a little bit upstream passed by us to go swim a little downstream.






Add these sightings to the hawk and the white heron. We have seen the blue heron again, but no pictures yet.

tags: Shellpot Creek, Wilmington, Delaware

Homunculi visit the Shellpot Creek

I spotted these tracks in conveniently frozen slush this morning. The tiny hand prints indicate that at least one homunculus has visited this area and may be preparing for something. Note the five fingers, one of which is clearly a thumb. Imagine my excitement at some real alchemical activity in my yard.





I took close-ups of two consecutive sets of tracks. Here is the second set.

There are about 16 inches from set to set. This indicates a creature that is about a third the size of a normal human. Perhaps it is Homo Floriensis. Or some thing that is familiar with the correct stud spacing in walls.

The frozen slush preserved 8 sets of tracks.

Further research suggests these are probably raccoon tracks.

The thumbs on a raccoon are not opposable but they do really make it look like they have little hands.

(homunculus picture in the alchemical test tube above is from my Life Science Library book "Matter", 1963, pg 21)