Expert: Julia Booth - 1/28/2009

Question
QUESTION: I live in Ontario, Canada right at the US border to Buffalo, NY. It has been freezing cold here this past week, and there was some sort of animal droppings all over our front porch. Are there any birds that you know who are around at night. The feces are small, appear black in color, but when put on a paper towel, turn greenish (which is why we think maybe a bird). Also, they were up on top of a mail box near the door (5 feet off the ground) and a seat (2 feet off the ground). We just don't think an animal can get up to those places, so we want to eliminate birds of any kind, before we look to some type of flying animal. Any ideas? thanks for your time.

ANSWER: For the most part, a bird's fecal matter is liquidy, and leaves behind a spatter when it lands. If what you're finding are tiny, little pieces, I'm thinking that your visitor is a bat or a rodent.

If you want to give me a picture, I could give you a more accurate ID.

Julia

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QUESTION: This was pretty liquidy with lumps, and the spots left were dark about the size of a quarter, and all over the place. (is that the spatter, perhaps?) Do bats do that as well? I will try to take some pictures tomorrow and send to you. We cleaned up /scraped some, but the animal/bird? has returned! thanks...

ANSWER: Liquidy with lumps is usually a bird or a bat. But if it's showing up in the morning, it's something nocturnal.

Birds are unique from mammals in that their kidneys extract nitrogen waste and excrete it as uric acid. They do not have a urinary bladder or external urethral opening and uric acid is excreted along with feces as a semisolid waste. In other words, it's all one package. No #1 and #2.

Well reptiles do this as well. But I don't see any reptiles running around in Ontario in the middle of winter.

Just email me the picture, if you can't load it onto this site. I'm sure we'll figure it out.

Juliabohemian@aol.com

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QUESTION: I am sending 3 images. Two are on the deck floor, and the third one is on the side of the house ..(we live in a log house, so that is the siding.)It seems I might be only able to upload one picture. I will see. If you need more, I can email them to you. Would that be ok?

Answer
Hmm...that's still rather ambiguous. Based on the color and size and placement, I'm still going to go with bat.

If you're not actually seeing anything there, during the day, chances are that whatever it is, would be nocturnal.

Birds are generally crepuscular, meaning most active at dawn and dusk. Watch those areas during that time and see what sort of activity pops up. If it's happening in the middle of the night, it's got to be a bat. Because rodent scat is generally pellet shaped.

Sorry, I couldn't help more. Feel free to email me the additional images,

Julia

Juliabohemian@aol.com