DEAR JOAN: I am trying to effigy out what is pooping on my dorsum lawn. It has been going on for the by two years.

I don't have any pets and our 1000 is completely fenced in. I practise have a fish swimming, only all the fish disappear as soon as I stock it with goldfish.

I take seen cats, raccoons and opossums coming to get a drink of h2o at night. I have eliminated the cats because they usually bury theirs and I have a lot of soft soil for them to do that. One I saw recently did expect similar it belonged to cats. It was scarlet and a very thin coil. The rest were ordinary chocolate-brown.

I have narrowed it down to the raccoon and opossum. The deposits are about the size of a small-scale dog.

I would like to discourage this beliefs. Would a repellent sprayed around the perimeter work or just exist a waste of fourth dimension? I did use one of those flashing cerise lights for a few years, but it has worn out.

Exercise you accept whatever suggestions?

Gloria Lambert, Santa Clara

Love GLORIA: Playing "who pooped this" is a pop game among my readers. Information technology's an unsavory topic, but information technology's important to know what animals are visiting your lawn then you tin can stave off trouble.

First of all, not all cats bury their waste, and when cats are contesting over territory, they leave their excrement exposed as a smelly sign declaring this surface area every bit belonging to them.

To know what animal is leaving their droppings, you need to take a good await at the scat. When you say information technology's the size of a small dog, I hope y'all're referring to the size of the poop a small dog might leave. Poop the bodily size of a modest dog would indicate you lot have dinosaurs in your backyard.

A raccoon'southward feces are 2 to 3 inches long, tubular in shape and, when fresh, nighttime brown. Yous should exist able to see bits of undigested nutrient in the stool. Raccoons also tend to create latrines, pooping in the same general place every time.

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

It also could be from a fox 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 contain 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 best approximate, based on your clarification and the fact that your fish keep disappearing, is that the phantom pooper is a raccoon. Chemical deterrents do help, although when yous have a large surface area to cover, they are not as effective. Physical barricades are useful, simply expensive and involve lots of labor. I'd replace the cerise calorie-free device and consider draining the pond for a while.

Honey JOAN: Nosotros have a single hummingbird feeder, and I frequently encounter one hummingbird start drinking, then immediately a 2d hummingbird bird arrives and scares abroad the offset. Are they being territorial? Are they from different competing flocks? Or is it a mating ritual?

Roger, Bay Area

DEAR ROGER: Information technology'southward not mating flavour and hummingbirds don't form flocks. It is all about territory.

You can try calculation another feeder. If at that place's plenty of food, hummers don't tend to fight about it. Sometimes, still, some slap-up hummers but won't share.