In article ,
"Mike Lyle" writes:
|
| My "Shit Book", aka Bang & Dahlstrom, _Collins Guide to Animal Tracks
| and Signs_, agrees with Janet, saying fox droppings "are
| sausage-shaped, usually 8-10 cm long and c. 2 cm across and with a
| spirally-twisted point at one end." If the dropping is broken up,
| only one bit has the point. It makes no mention of lawns as a likely
| site, though it's possible if a fox has a regular path across a
| particular lawn; in general they leave them on a slight elevation,
| allowing scent-marking to take better effect. Hedgehog droppings, on
| the other hand, usually have a point at one end, but there's no
| mention of a twist. "The size is very variable, but on average each
| dropping is 3-4 cm long and 8-10 mm thick." "...they can be found
| distributed at random on, for instance, lawns..." I infer that fox
| droppings are black only in autumn when they've been eating berries,
| while hedgehog ones are black all the year round.

The spiral twisting is not invariable, because it is caused by there
being a lot of hair and feathers in it, and they are often (perhaps
usually) black, anyway. My difficulty is in telling a small fox
dropping from a large hedgehog one.

I see quite a lot of ones that are 5-7 cm long and c. 1.5 cm thick,
so you can see why I have the difficulty!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.