Poo on the wall?

[shirl]

These appeared on our stone wall at the top of the field, there are 2 distinct piles, 1 "intact" showing a couple of blue bits in it & with ruler for scale and the other on the next stone is spread about with loads of these little bright blue bits and what looks like thin bones. Any ideas?

Shirl

[nye24]

I think the blue bits could be parts of blue bottle fly,i would say that it could well be be badger,i don't think its fox,normally foxes droppings look like spiral shapes.Again badgers normally dig a small hole in which they do there business in.Hopes this helps.

[Dogghound]

I think the blue bits are elytra from a beetle. Have you considered a bird?

[shirl]

The blue bits do look a bit beetle like, rather bright blue though. If it was bird, what sort might it be?

Shirl

[Dogghound]

im not much of a bird person im afraid, what size are they? The beetle parts look like the belong to Geotrupes sp (a Dor beetle) or something similar which are this colour. As mentioned before i think a badger would be the only mammalian possibility but a very strange place so wouldnt think so.

[shirl]

It's all very weird, especially on the wall. Just been back up to the wall , the first pile is drying out now, so the colour is changing to a lightish brown. The second "pile" with insects - here's a pic with ruler to show the size of the pile and the insect bits.



On the stone wall opposite (across the lane ) I fiund 2 more piles, the first one looks more like regurgitated remains and is full of beetle bits. On the next stone along there appears to be white eggshell remains



A couple more stones along and there is this pile



Interesting!

Shirl

[Dogghound]

The bottom two could be from a crow? are they pellets?

[shirl]

The last 2 pics could be pellets, we don't tend to get crows round here though although it's not impossible. The first pic from yesterday has to be poo though so maybe there are 2 different species at work here!

We had foxes at the top of the drive the other night, but it doesn't look much like the normal fox poo we get in the garden. There are owls too, tawny and little owls.

It really is a bit of a mystery, and why on the wall unless it's a territory thing?
The beetle id could be right as across the lane there are cows so lots of cow dung!

Shirl

[Dogghound]

It depends on what they have been eating but fox droppings vary alot, if they have a high protein diet it can look alot like dog droppings.

[mbaldw]

I'd lean towards fox scat. They will deposit their droppings on prominent objects -- such as along walls, on stones, tufts of grass etc. -- as they're used (in conjunction with a secretion from the anal glands that's often deposited on the scat) as territory markers. As dogghound says, the consistency of the scat changes according to what the animal has been eating. When they eat a lot of 'squishy' food, like earthworms, the scat can be runny or even jelly-like, whereas it can be very solid if the diet is principally mammal-based. I've collected and dissected scats that are 85% fur and seen others that are so fluid (apologies to anyone who's just eaten!) there have been almost no identifiable components.

Photo 72171 looks like it's been beaten down by rain (have you had any lately?), while photo 72170 looks to have been stepped in (perhaps by the same or another fox, or a bird etc.). Photo 72172 looks more 'intact'. All the photos suggest that the local fox(es) has been feeding heavily on beetles (perhaps Meloe sp?)

Cheers,
Marc.