Guest entry: Twinkletoes...or learning to coexist with our (stinky) suburban neighbors

(Ok, this is not really food or plants, but I'm an animal lover, too...)

So we have a guest in our yard this year...we call him (maybe her?) "Twinkletoes". We noticed one day that something had eaten one of the ladies' eggs, and the ladies were not roosting where they were supposed to - they would hunker down over behind the raspberries and stay out at night. So the second or third night of this, the Campesino tried to shoo the ladies home. Juliet, our alpha-hen, stopped at the coop door and looked, and looked...and wouldn't go in. So Campesino opens the coop door, and from across the yard I hear, "Woah! OK ladies - you sleep wherever you want!"

Twinkletoes, in case you hadn't guessed, is our nocturnal black-and-white friend...a skunk. Of course, our first instinct was call someone to trap it - get rid of it. I called the federal trapper for the county, and when I told him what part of town we lived in, his response was, "Ah, the skunk capitol of the county." Great. So he was too busy to come trap Twinkletoes and he didn't want to accidentally trap one of the neighbor cats that roam our yard, either. So Twinkletoes (and family...there are at least two others) stayed.

Since then I've read that if you trap and remove them, other skunks or urban wildlife like raccoons will move in to take their place. I'd much rather have skunks, who eat the occasional egg, than raccoons, who kill full-grown chickens for sport, so I'm hoping the skunks discourage the 'coons from returning later this year. The chickens started laying in the ivy along the back fence, so Twinkletoes doesn't find the eggs very often (then again, neither do we...the chickens are pretty good at hiding them.)

Anyway, that was a few weeks ago, so we've decided to try to learn to live with our musky little friends. They're actually quite cute (I'll try and snap a photo one of these nights) and beneficial. They eat all sorts of undesirable garden pests: beetles, aphids, lawn grubs, black widows, rats and mice, etc. and downed-fruit, but so far nothing on the vine or plant. As soon as it's dark (and sometimes not even dark) Twinkletoes is out roaming the lawn and garden, nose down, sniffing and hunting very determinedly. We find these funny little snout holes all over the garden, about 3-4" across and 1-2" deep, where the skunk found a good snack to dig up. But they seem to be much less destructive than chickens can be in the garden - no digging up plants [Well, minimal digging up of plants, but not as bad as chickens - Campesino], eating ripe veggies or excessive scratching, just very targeted snout-sized digging.

Campesino has had some accidental but fortunately not stinky encounters with Twinketoes and sons, just surprising them out in the garden. But, as is usually the case with animals, they seem more scared of us than we are of them. We watched Twinkletoes hunt in the lawn for a few minutes the other night. He moved very quickly while hunting and didn't see us for a while, but as soon as he did (he was getting a bit close for our comfort - within about 10 feet) he shot back into a bush. Skunks are good diggers but crummy climbers and have very short legs, so they don't walk or bound like squirrels or cats, they...well, "twinkle". Think classic Tom & Jerry cartoons - you know when one is sneaking up on the other, only paw-fingertips moving with the "tinkle tinkle tinkle" sound effect? Just like that. They almost seem to levitate and travel without moving.

So, we'll see how co-existing with Twinkletoes and family goes!