Recently, I planted a new butterfly garden about a hundred feet from my house. I love it and each morning I go down with my coffee, look around and admire the new plants that I envision will attract a gazillion butterflies in the months and years to come.

The other day I noticed fresh scat that I didn't recognize. I live on a few acres in semi-rural Vacaville. We have lots of wildlife. And even though our primary property is fenced off, that doesn't deter animals that crawl, jump and leap. But this scat looked more like it was from a dog. That that didn't make sense. It was in the fenced portion and way down toward the back of the property. The concept that a dog, of the size that the scat indicated – if you get my drift, would have entered our property through an open gate, wandered down below, done its business then left without being noticed didn't compute. I was confused.

But later that same day when I received a text from a neighbor that they had a mountain lion in their backyard, it all became clear. It was time to pull out the handy scat chart. I regretted that I had not thought to do so earlier. Sure enough, the scat was from a mountain lion. Further investigation around our pool led to finding sizable paw prints. And a few nights later, it woke me up with loud screeching cries. While I had never heard a mountain lion before, I was positive that was the sounds coming from right outside my bedroom door. To be certain, I forwarded the audio to a wildlife scientist to confirm, which he did. “Yes ma'am, that's a cat. Sounds like a female in heat sending long-distance cries to nearby males.”

The point of all this is, as gardeners we are out in our gardens frequently. Wildlife, and domestic animals, do wander. I think it's important that we know our scat. That we can recognize a domestic cat from a raccoon or an opossum from a fox. All animals, big and small leave markings and signs that let us know they were there. If we will just observe and be aware. Clearly, we can't be certain unless we actually witness the act, or have the DNA checked. But having a good educated guess can help us to know what's coming and going in our garden.

CSUchico has a simple chart and good information available at this link: https://www.csuchico.edu/gateway/_assets/documents/whose-scat-is-that1.pdf

Below is a picture of my butterfly garden. I thought you would enjoy that more than a picture of the scat.