Raccoon Scats

Looking out my kitchen window, I noticed something black on top of the red mulch, underneath my Bradley Pear Trees, just next to the bright green Coral Bell plants.  We get alot of birds in our trees in addition to a couple of nests perched up high too; so, from a distance, it looked like dead small crow or raven.

Coral Bell Plant (photo by Lourdes)

Later in the day, I walked out to examine blackened object a little more closely and noticed it was poop.  For a moment, I thought it was my neighbor's little pooch since the darn thing has escaped and crawled under our wooden fence before.  However, recently, we placed brick stones and little wooden barriers underneath the biggest space from the fence and ground to keep small dogs from entering our yard.

In the 15 years that I lived here, I have never been visited by the masked bandit.  Last month, a raccoon walked on my cement patio, saw me and even came up to my glass sliding door.  Just this past week, a raccoon was walking along my house and fence early one morning.  

Photo credit: jak from morguefile.com

The appearance of the "poop" gave way to my suspicion of the uninvited.  Imagine google-ing images on what raccoon poops looks like along with opossum poop. Yes, I spotted them around lately too.  Gross as it sounds, I am convinced it is raccoon poop that's still in my yard.  

Finally, I found a link that gave some reasonable and simple advice on how to deter raccoons. http://www.getridofthings.com/get-rid-of-raccoons.htm

I'm hoping that following some simple advice such as adding ammonia using predator urine will keep these pests from walking thru my small, cozy, and relaxing garden patio area.