What could it be.....?

[The Olsons]

At 3 am this morning I heard a bunch of "little" noises that were then followed what sounded sliding down a pole and falling on the deck with a big thump. I got up and looked out of the window and on the railing of a nearby deck I saw an animal that I could not identify. It was sitting on his hind legs looking up the gourd rack and had this serious "thinking" expression on the face trying to figure out how to get to the gourds where we have one active nest left. We also have one gourd where fledglings from two weeks ago still sleep in every night. Since I have the bird netting and the predator guard up I was not too concerned for this little guy to get up to the birds, plus when I opened the blinds he took off.

Just out of curiosity what type of animal do you think this was?

It looked all cuddly and soft with the light brown fur.
It moved very smoothly
It had about the size of a rabbit and the color, but no rabbit ears.
It did not have the raccoon mask.
It did not have the pointy possum nose.
It was not a cat or large rat.....it had no tail.


Fortunately, all the thumping and sliding did not scare the martins in any way

Astrid

[ron20m]

since you live on a lake could it have been a muskrat? SP?

[The Olsons]

Ron,
We live on the water but it is salt water, I do not know if that would make a difference. I just looked up some Muskrat pictures and the light brown color of the fur is what that little guy had; I just did not see a tail when he left. Maybe he had it tugged under I will read up more on Muskrat....thank you for your input

Astrid

[Guest]

Weasels live in Texas, look all cuddly and soft with the light brown fur, move very smoothly, are about the size of a rabbit and the color, but no rabbit ears, do not have the raccoon mask, do not have the pointy possum nose, but they do have a short tail.

[Guest]

Almost forgot. They climb and eat eggs and young birds.

[The Olsons]

Mark,

Thank you for your reply. I think you might be right about the Weasels I looked at some pictures after your post and this cuddly looking, smooth moving, mask less, flat nosy guy does match most pictures, except for the tail He might have gotten all scared when he saw me looking at him and tucked it under when he fled from me

It starts to sound like I have my own "jungle" in the backyard, starting with the Texas Horned Lizard, Cooneys, Possums, Snakes and now Weasels, oh and not to forget the cats and rats....and ants

Astrid

[Matt F.]

Astrid, my guess is a nutria. Texas (as well as most other southern states) have them EVERYWHERE.

[The Olsons]

Matt,

Thank you for your reply It is still the tail that is confusing me but I just googled Nutria and actually found a video from a couple that have a Nutria as a pet I am going to post the link just in case someone (like me) is not familiar with them. That pet Nutria looks size wise pretty much what I have seen this morning. I probably need to line up some pictures between the Muskrat, the Weasels and Nutria. The pictures of the Muskrat showed them shorter than the Nutria and the Weasel a little longer.....

Since I am not working this weekend (for a change), I will try to find some videos of the Muskrat and Weasel as well to see how they move around. What was really obvious was the smooth way this little guy moved.

http://videos.nola.com/2008/09/molly_th ... a_rat.html

Astrid

[Guest]

Astrid,

After an exhaustive search through the archives of the "Weekly World News", I believe I may have identified your intruder. Has to be one of the following:

[The Olsons]

Tim,

You are sooooo funny OMG, the second picture with Bat Boy is totally scary.... He does not have enough "fur" to qualify for the critter in question.

With that in mind it was EL CHUPACABRA....mine just had a little bit more fur than "Chuppy"

Astrid

[LNCummins]

Minks also climb and eat birds and eggs,but they have a tail.

[The Olsons]

LNCummings,

Thank you for your reply and you are right about the mink eating eggs and young birds. I also checked out pictures of the minks this morning, and the tail is what is just confusing to me, because I had a pretty good look at the guy

I do not know if it is common for the above mentioned critters to tuck their tail under or if in fact I have a "new species" in my yard

I am just very glad and thankful that the predator guard worked and whatever the intruder is, he kept sliding down

Astrid

[Matt F.]

Is it possible one of your neighbors brought back Northern Pika from northern Asia, and it got out?

Or (on a more serious note) there is a rodent called a South Texas pocket gopher.

Here is a link to a National Park Service site. If you scroll down, you'll see the part about the gophers, and there's a photo also.

http://www.nps.gov/pais/naturescience/mammals.htm

[The Olsons]

Matt,

Thank you for checking all these different sites out That little gopher looks also a lot alike of what I saw and the size fits, but the weight of 10-12 oz is not enough, unless that is a typo on their end and means pounds, which would make more sense.

We have a lot of different type of gophers here so that would be a start with the South Texas Pocket Gopher.....

The link you provided is really cool....when you go to the birds those are all our backyard visitors except for the skimmers. They have a designated and protected area between Flour Bluff and the Island which is the area between going on and off the bridge. We now have what they call little bird Islands for all the different species. I think this is really cool.

Thank you for posting this link and if we can put some weight on the guy, he might just be the one

Astrid

[Peggy Riley]

Astrid do you think the little critter could have lost his tail to a predator?

I've seen the nutria before and they are really cute.

[The Olsons]

Peggy,

That is a good point you are making about the tail being one or real short due to a predator attack.... I never thought of that. Did you check out the link that I provided a couple posts above yours? It shows a pet Nutria eating a carrot on the couch.....Of what I can tell from that video size wise it is probably the closest to what I saw.

Astrid

[Peggy Riley]

Sure would make a beautiful coat! (NOT!) They are cute things. We've lost fish on lines to them before. They would come up under the pier and take the ones we were holding to eat! I do believe they were used for fur coats in the past just like a mink.

[LNCummins]

I beleive the Nutria is a vegetarian,but it's close relative the Muskrat eats fish,but neither eat birds or eggs so they would have no reasen to try to climb a martin pole.

[Peggy Riley]

I didn't know that! Maybe is was a muskrat stealing our fish.