a further puzzle
while the mystery of the big dead ants remains unsolved, a new one has sprung up. or dropped down, as it were.
a few days ago, i went out onto the balcony to water the geraniums and noticed that at the opposite end of my balcony from the ant graveyard -- which, thankfully, seems to have stopped replenishing itself -- was a large collection of what appeared to be more big dead ants.
but when i stepped closer i saw that the black things weren't big dead ant but, rather, what looked like droppings of some sort.
i'm assuming bird droppings, since there's no way any mammal could get to that spot and poop over and over and over again in what is basically a 10-square-inch area.
but here's the thing -- there's nowhere for birds to actually perch above the spot where the pile of poo has accumulated. there's roof over the area.
so it's sort of the equivalent of finding a pile of bird poop in the middle of your bedroom -- WHERE ARE THE BIRDS SITTING IN ORDER TO HAVE POOP FALL IN THAT SPOT REPEATEDLY?!
are they clinging to the bricks on the wall, pooping, and then moving on? if so, why that exact spot? based on the volume of the wee turds, it would have had to have been several birds over the course of several days. this was no drive-by pooping.
and then YB posited: maybe it's bats.
bats?
again, just sitting there (there's no nest or anything anywhere) on a nocturnal pit stop, pooping and then flapping away come daylight?
WHERE IS THIS POOP COMING FROM?
UPDATE: i have just googled, and it could very well be bat poop from bats that roost/visit at night.
5 comments:
If this is bird poop, it would be dark and white. If it is not, not birds. I vote for bats.
You have an interesting balcony. ;-)
so much activity for such a barren space.
no white, only black pellets. google "bat poop." that's exactly what it looks like!
Wow. You have bats. I think that might be lucky.
I did some googling, and there are four bats in Toronto, but based on the description of their habits, I'd say yours is either Little Brown Bat or Big Brown Bat (that's not a joke, though it sure sounds like a joke). Bats sleep during the day, so have you looked up?
i have. zilch. i kind of wonder if they make pit stops there at night, but have an actual nest (or whatever) somewhere else that they return to at dawn.
I think that bats are small, and can fold into tiny bundles that look nothing like what we think a bat is. In the ceiling of your balcony absolutely smooth, or are there crevices, nooks? At night, bats are eating. Eating, eating, eating. So taking a pit stop just for a rest is not happening. Anything there for a bat to eat?
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