Hi,
In my front yard yesterday I noticed these small piles of dirt and rocks and, well the pic will show. I don't know what is doing it or why. They are all over my front yard. Does anyone recognize whatever this is and tell me what's doing it and possibly why?
Thanks
Vicki
I'm curious, too. Do you have birds, maybe, that could do this? Crows do funny things. Or maybe it's the way the water flows. Have you been in the house for long?
I would say you have a mole, or something coming from under the soil rather than something digging on top of the soil, even ants can shift that amount of soil when building a nest, the best thing to do is to get the garden trowel out, gently scrape away a few piles of earth so you can see the size, shape and how deep the underground tunnel is, I have no idea of your area, but here, by the see, it could be a crab, a frog/toad or whatever, but your best to find out now so you know what you are dealing with, whatever it was, it may have moved on to pastures new by now, nature sure is a strange learning curve. Good luck. WeeNel.
I had already thought of moles and so did my friends. I've had moles,these are not moles. I did gently move the dirt and twigs and stones aside to see the hole or tunnel. No hole, no tunnel, these little piles were made on top of the dirt, as near as I can tell whatever it is just moved dirt, twigs, stones and one case a small button to form this small pile. There must be at least 30. I thought of ants, seen ant hills, they aren't like these and not an ant in sight. Anybody???
cats covering something?
I still think it might be an animal of some kind. Birds would be my guess. How many piles are there?
I thought of bower birds (sp?) as in the male bird will collect special things to impress a female bird. The collections are placed very similar to what you have in your yard....
Is spring in the air yet? lol
Do they have Bower birds in Washington?
or other birds that behave in a similar manner......
qood question!
Thank you all for the help. I have never heard of a Bower Bird. I looked them up, what a unique and marvelous bird. I tried to find out if they are in Washington State and all I got was they are in Austrailia. Most of the pictures are of beautiful birds. I had an incident a couple of months ago. Not far from where these "piles" are, I pulled into my driveway. Suddenly about 40+ birds were there just walking around. Kind of freaked me out. I carefully got out of my car, but they flew away. If these piles were from a bird, I couldn't figure out why there were so many of them. The appearance of all those birds at one time might account for it. The birds I saw looked something like the "drab" bower bird. These mounds are very plain and small compared to what they usually do, but they do build them on the forest floor rather than in a tree. I am going to go with the bird idea, bower or other and try to keep a close eye on the front yard. Thank you all for the ideas. If you get a chance go to google images and type in Bowerbird Bowers and look at some of the nests these guys build. This pic is too show how many and how close. Each darker spot is a small pile (bower?) Thanks Vicki
Yip, I would agree, it is a mating/nesting ritual by some smart egotistical bird, he/she has a lot of showing off to do to impress a partner and just maybe the flock you witnessed was there way of having a huge meet and great party, has any of the neighbours has similar experiences, perhaps they witnessed who was the culprit, sounds like an awesome thing to watch, so keep a watch for part two happening. best of luck. WeeNel.
Vickie, did your birds look like these?
http://search.live.com/images/results.aspx?q=european%20starling&FORM=BIRE
European Starlings gather in HUGE numbers. Around here they can be close to 500,000 birds in a flock. It's amazing to see them like that.
Bowerbirds don't appear to be in the U.S. But starlings are common nearly everywhere.
Here is a link for them in WA:
http://birdweb.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?id=360
Those little piles of sticks and rocks have a very familiar look, but for the life of me I can't remember where I saw something like that or when. Must be old age setting in. I sure hope someone comes up with a better answer than I have. LOL.
kwanjin,
I think you may have answered the question I had about the flock of birds I saw this fall. It wasn't an especially huge flock, maybe a couple of thousand, but their behavior is what I found fascinating. They would fly 50-60 feet at about 20 feet in the air, land for a few seconds (appeared to be eating), then fly another 50-60 feet and land again. They zig-zagged back and forth across the road, up onto the neighbor's property, then onto our property, then back across the road, then back onto our side of the road, and so forth. They appeared to be following the road down to the lake.
Karen
Their feeding patterns are interesting. I watch them in the grass in front of the houses and DH says it looks like a military FOD walkdown. Spring and fall is when they gather in the big flocks.
those are the starlings I see around here time to time, they "work" the back yard and move on - the cat gets all in a tizzy about it . I haven't seen any this year yet.
When I saw those piles, they remind me of something my kids would do. lol
I think it is little tiny space men, haha.
vickey i have them too! all over--and i know we have bunnies and thought maybe they sort of burrow down a bit but i think it is the birds too---we have tons of squirrels but it's not a hole that's been covered up-- lots of it is in the mulch--kinda funny since nothing destructive!
OK Vicky, it's time to set up the web cam so you can put us all out of our misery, I would just love to witness this in action, pretty neat for whatever it is, even if it is kids playing tricks on us, but I think it is birds. Good Luck. WeeNel.
cathy4,
My daughter is voting for aliens, too. LOL.
vicki and planolinda,
I agree with WeeNel and the others who say it is some kind of bird. The close-up vicki shows does have not any tracks around the sticks/pebbles piles. It looks like very sandy ground, so I would think that an animal of any size would leave some kind of track or foot print or drag marks. But birds can fly and put the stuff in a pile without being on the ground and without dragging them there.
WeeNel,
Web cam -- great idea!
Karen
I vote for aliens! LOL
I do so hope it's not water patterns because that would take the fun out of it.
Nope, I don't think it's water. Water would wash the stuff into more like strip formations, I think. Enough water to move those little pebbles would wash the little wood chips farther, wouldn't it?
Karen
I still think it is aliens and they want to make you their queen, wait on you hand and foot, peel grapes for you, bring you cool drinks and fresh towels, fluff your pillows, rub oil into your skin, buy you the finest chocolates, weed your garden and bow to your every command.
Was it especially rainy or warm the day before your strange discovery? I have had strange mounds made by nightcrawlers, and they do not leave a tunnel. They appear after a warm rain.
aliens it might be for me!! did you hear about all the people this week who saw UFO's?
I like those kinds of aliens! I want some, too!
Hi,
This is a current pic of the mounds. They are not really mounds anymore. They are unusal because it seems that wherever there was a mound there now seem to be small holes, almost like an ice pick was pushed into the ground. I don't know what it was but it has gone. Holes? Breathing? This pic is very close so you can tell the amount of holes that seem to have been placed in the mound.
Vicki
I think I would have to go along with the Aliens! LOL
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLR_enUS243US243&q=ground+bees&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
your picture looks like the one at the above link. if this is what you have, they are ground bees. dangerous little critters from what I have heard.....I have a friend that was attacked by them. Any way, the link below gives instructions on how to get rid of them......
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_get_rid_of_ground_bees
Me, again, voting for the aliens. Wouldn't you see bees? The article I read mentions that the eggs are laid in March or April and the bees emerge during the same months.
My kids & friends have pulled well thought-out tricks on me before, I'm wondering if you will soon have giant plastic sunflowers growing there?
No you would not necessarily see the bees, unless you were constantly watching the holes non stop 24/7. These bees leave the nests early in the morning and return in the evening. My friend found her nests in her flower garden one evening while pulling weeds. She had no clue that it was even there because she had never seen the bees in that area of her yard before. They chased her all the way into her house and at the same time attacking her. I am not saying that this IS what Vicki has, I am only suggesting it as a possibility.
According to the articles and the photos, ground bees would push some dirt to the top of the ground in digging. The photos of mining bees' holes look, I think, more like what Vicki has.
Vicki, do you see dirt around the holes? It doesn't look like it in your photo.
What happened to the piles of sticks and rocks? Did they wash away in a rain or are they just scattered now instead of piled up? I have seen holes similar to that formed by earthworms coming to the surface after a rain.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Karen
Huh. Weird. I'm still curious, too!
This message was edited Jan 21, 2008 10:08 PM
kids?
My vote is with nightcrawlers.
You can see them at night by shining a flashlight on the ground. But, they are really fast and if you want to see them, you have to be quick. Good "detective " work if you have kids.
i said earlier in this post that i had the same happening to me--well my mysterious divets have stopped--so weather seems to have something to do with whatever is making them---does that help in eliminating some ideas? vicki did they stop for you when the weather got cold?
when the weather got cold the kids had to come inside to play! lol!
I would vote for the night crawlers except I wouldn't think they would pile the pebbles and sticks up like that. However, it is possible there are two things going on here -- the piled up stuff, which is no longer piled up, and the little holes.
I tried Googling every combination I could think of -- came up totally empty-handed -- couldn't find anything that looked like those little piles of stuff.
Karen
sure hope it isn't my "kids" since the youngest of the 4 is 18!
Got a webcam?
We'll all watch your backyard for you. LOL
