Solving the mystery of the disappearing bird seed.
Shortly after building my dream house on a five-acre woodland in Burrillville, Rhode Island, I was robbed. A few days later, it happened again. Night after night, year in and year out, I continued to be robbed. And I'm still not completely satisfied that I know who the real culprit is.
What is absolutely certain, though, is that the thief loves suet and sunflower seeds.
Before construction on my house was even complete, I installed several bird feeders in my new backyard. After moving in, I added more. Depending on the season, I have up to three feeders filled with sunflower seeds, two with thistle, two hummingbird feeders, two suet holders, and a platform for mixed seed.
Dozens of species of birds immediately flocked to the neighborhood's newest eatery. Other hungry residents--squirrels and chipmunks--showed up as expected.
Eventually, though, I noticed that more bird food was disappearing from my feeders at night than during the day. That's fine, I thought. I'm happy to feed all the local wildlife. I just wanted to know who the nocturnal visitors were.
My investigation revealed some interesting answers.
After dark, whenever I stroll into my kitchen, I've gotten into the habit of briefly turning on the backyard spotlight to see who--or what--might be about. It didn't take long before I discovered my first visitors--a pair of gray foxes.
Red foxes are quite common here in Rhode Island, but gray foxes are another story. Whenever I talk about the foxes, friends who think they know better usually correct me. "You mean red foxes, right?" And I don't blame them. I had never seen gray foxes before. But these were definitely the gray variety. The tail was conspicuously tipped in black, and running along the top of the entire length of the tail was a black mane. Both field marks are diagnostic.
Almost every other night through that entire winter, the foxes appeared in the spotlight, feeding on spilled sunflower seed beneath one feeder or another. But after that first winter I never saw them again.
One thing seemed clear: The foxes were not my thief. They never climbed the tree to steal the suet or knocked the feeders from their hangers. Like many sparrows, they fed exclusively from the ground.
The next winter my vigilance with the spotlight turned up different visitors--striped skunks. I saw at least two individuals quite regularly. One had a typical black body with a wide white stripe down its back and tail, and the other's white stripe was thin, crooked, and mottled with black.
But they weren't my robbers either. Like the foxes, they just scavenged the spilled seed from the ground, I think. I don't know if skunks can climb trees, but of the 20-plus times I saw them, never once were they above ground level.
A year later, three other nocturnal mammals were discovered. Now, I thought, I was getting somewhere.
Once--and only once--I saw an opossum strolling through the yard. It didn't stop to eat seeds. It just walked nonchalantly from one dark corner of the yard, through the illuminated area, and off somewhere into the darkness again. I know opossums eat anything and everything, from seeds and insects to carrion and garbage. And I know they're excellent tree climbers. But since I saw it only once, it wasn't at the top of my list of suspects.
Shortly thereafter I caught the thief. Or I caught a family of thieves. And I caught them with their fingers in the cookie jar.
Flying squirrels. Three of them. Big ears, huge eyes, and a thick flap of furry skin between their front and hind legs that allows them to soar from tree to tree.
They were the cutest animals I'd ever seen. They "flew" back and forth between two maple trees, chased each other around the branches, and often played behind the tree trunks when they saw me watching them from the window. They took turns stealing one seed at a time, running away to eat it and then returning 20 seconds later for another, sort of like a small flock of chickadees.
But they couldn't be my thief. I was losing a quart of sunflower seeds and half pound of suet each night. There's no way those little chipmunk-sized critters could pull off a heist like that without putting on a lot of weight. And they certainly didn't show it.
Then it happened. And it happened in a big way.
I flicked on the spotlight in my usual unsuspecting manner, and there hanging from the branches were five raccoons. It was apparent from their size that two were adults and three were nearly full-grown youngsters.
One was tugging at a big chunk of suet; another was hanging upside-down on a triple tube feeder sucking out the seeds; and a third was on the ground gobbling up what the tube sucker was spilling. The other two were perched comfortably high in the tree, probably digesting a big meal, compliments of yours truly.
After three years I caught my thieves. I thought. But if I was right, then why hadn't I seen them before? Was the opossum also a more regular visitor than I realized? And what about those skunks? Maybe they can climb trees after all.
Last year my thieves disappeared. The whole region was in the midst of a major rabies epidemic, so the local population of raccoons and skunks plummeted. Few were seen anywhere. And none visited my bird feeders. I woke up each morning with the same amount of bird food in the feeders as when I went to bed.
But now, another bird feeding season has arrived. And just two days after putting out my first suet cake, it disappeared overnight, along with a full tube of sunflower seeds. It happened six days in a row, so I returned to my nightly vigil of turning on the spotlight.
So far I've seen just one flying squirrel. Maybe it's time to call in a professional. Does anyone know how to reach Sherlock Holmes?