Love JOAN: I am trying to effigy out what is pooping on my back lawn. It has been going on for the past two years.

I don't have whatever pets and our m is completely fenced in. I do have a fish pond, merely all the fish disappear as soon as I stock it with goldfish.

I have seen cats, raccoons and opossums coming to become a beverage of water at nighttime. I have eliminated the cats because they usually bury theirs and I have a lot of soft soil for them to exercise that. One I saw recently did expect like it belonged to cats. It was reddish and a very thin coil. The balance were ordinary dark-brown.

I have narrowed it down to the raccoon and opossum. The deposits are about the size of a small canis familiaris.

I would like to discourage this behavior. Would a repellent sprayed around the perimeter work or just exist a waste of time? I did use one of those flashing red lights for a few years, but information technology has worn out.

Do you have any suggestions?

Gloria Lambert, Santa Clara

DEAR GLORIA: Playing "who pooped this" is a popular game among my readers. Information technology's an unsavory topic, merely it's important to know what animals are visiting your backyard so you lot can stave off problem.

Get-go of all, not all cats bury their waste, and when cats are contesting over territory, they leave their excrement exposed as a evil-smelling sign declaring this area as belonging to them.

To know what animal is leaving their droppings, you need to have a good look at the scat. When you say it'south the size of a pocket-sized canis familiaris, I hope you lot're referring to the size of the poop a small dog might leave. Poop the actual size of a small dog would indicate you have dinosaurs in your lawn.

A raccoon's feces are 2 to 3 inches long, tubular in shape and, when fresh, night brown. You lot should exist able to see bits of undigested food in the stool. Raccoons too tend to create latrines, pooping in the aforementioned general place every time.

Opossum debris are surprising large, with smooth sides and tapered ends. The scat also tin be a scrap curly.

It also could be from a play a trick on or coyote. Their droppings are similar to each other — and to dogs' poo — although the coyote's is larger. In both cases, the poo will comprise a lot of things that weren't digested, such as vegetable and fruit seeds, and fur or hair from any prey they've eaten.

My all-time approximate, based on your description and the fact that your fish keep disappearing, is that the phantom pooper is a raccoon. Chemical deterrents practise help, although when y'all accept a large surface area to cover, they are not as effective. Physical barricades are useful, but expensive and involve lots of labor. I'd supersede the red lite device and consider draining the pond for a while.

Love JOAN: We accept a single hummingbird feeder, and I ofttimes see one hummingbird start drinking, then immediately a 2d hummingbird bird arrives and scares away the starting time. Are they being territorial? Are they from dissimilar competing flocks? Or is it a mating ritual?

Roger, Bay Area

DEAR ROGER: It'south not mating flavor and hummingbirds don't form flocks. It is all well-nigh territory.

You can try adding another feeder. If there'due south plenty of nutrient, hummers don't tend to fight most information technology. Sometimes, nonetheless, some bang-up hummers but won't share.