Expert: Roger Lederer - 4/4/2009

Question
We live in Canon City, Colorado and wonder if you can help us identify what bird leaves this feces on our front sidewalk during the night. The dropping is peanut shaped and size, it is dark brown/gray/green in color with a white area on it. It is obviously from a bird on the ground since it is not flattened like poo from a flying bird.  Canon City is a smaller community and we live right outside the city limits in an area with homes on larger lots. We do feed sunflower seeds and wild bird feed and water birds year round. Thanks for any insight you can give us.

Answer
I would be surprized that you would not have seen the bird(s) that leaves this dropping as something that big would be pretty obvious - like a Canada Goose. However, birds are active during the day, rarely at night. So the fact that it leaves droppings at night indicates to me it is a mammal - could be a raccoon, porcupine, skunk, opossum or something similar that hangs around human dwellings.