Edit: Mystery seemingly solved, probably the local birds are eating fruit from some of the trees in the neighborhood and plopping piles of seeds everywhere.
Pets flair because animal related. I’ve noticed a lot of strange animal droppings in the general vicinity of my apartment lately. I assume it’s from birds since it’s almost entirely under power lines/mixed in with the bird crap, but it doesn’t look like any bird poo I’ve ever seen before. It basically looks like someone took a wad of broken milk chocolate, slung it at the ground, and sprinkled sesame seeds on it. I wouldn’t think much of it if I only saw it once or twice but it’s *everywhere* there’s bird poop.
Is there sick wildlife around here or something? Part of me is mildly paranoid that’s what the shit from a bird with bird-flu would have, though I suspect that’s just me being dramatic.
8 comments
Do you have a photo?
Probably birds eating garbage.
Birds with bird flu have regular shit. Also, you shouldn’t be ingesting bird feces, whether they’re sick or not.
Could be a palm civet (ハクビシン) one used to get into my neighbors tomatoes and leave droppings like that on my balcony.
Don’t look up.
Civet
It’s likely azure-tailed magpies (オナガ) eating some sort of berries—I don’t know what they are—that are growing now. We get them often this season. Be careful with your laundry, as the droppings will stain. If you observe closely, you’ll notice the droppings tend to appear before sunset, when the birds are moving to wherever they’ll spend the night.
Hard to guess based on the description, but here’s what I think may be going on:
Some small fruits are in season — the trees have lost their leaves and their fruits have gotten fire enough to be eaten, so swarms of birds come and gorge on this particular fruit. Most likely it’s something small, and full of seed, the birds digest the rinds and poop out the rest, in huge amounts.
Sounds like what others said, they’re eating some kind of seeded fruit or berry that’s in season. Sometimes birds regurgitate too and you end up seeing really bizarre-looking piles.