In the past I baited traps with nuts and covered multiple traps with large cement mixing trays that I moved around my nursery through Nov. into Dec. , but this year a skunk kept taking the bait so I got tamper resistant poison bait stations, but the skunk still took poison out of the stations somehow so I had to trap and kill the skunk even though the poison would probably have done the job (bait is intentionally slow acting so anecdote can treat accidental poisoning). The pine voles will come up for the bait or poison if timed right, from my experience. 012 was a tough year... for me and all the wildlife searching for any available food.

ok, you don't have any takers at all, and although I really don't have the answer either, I am, of course full of guesses. what kind of trees flank the areas where you see them most? Are there ash trees/ Hickories? THe ash trees dropped their seeds a while back, but since they lie flat on the ground you might not notice them from a distance and it could look like the animals were instead munching rock. THe hickories are droppong early nuts too...some of our younger trees began letting loose of smaller nuts weeks ago and now the BIG NUTS are booming down. Could there be a pignut tree in the area?? If they aren't after seeds or nuts then I really have no idea what they're getting. Yop need to get as close as possible and really reaaly REALLY inspect this. THere is an answer to the riddle...you just have to go find it.

The deer that visits my yard will eat all the buds and leaves off my roses and leave bare stems. After a complete denuding, the rose may not recover enough to survive the next winter. The deer go after the tenderest hybrid roses and tend to leave the wild brambly rose alone. They prefer the 'soft' rose plants to the old hardy heirloom varieties. Sometimes, I can repel the deer by spraying the plants with a repellent called "Repels". That repellent must be re-applied after each rain. Once marigolds are established (have developed a root system), the deer will eat the rose leaves and hydrangea buds in preference to the marigolds. So far, they have left the petunias and phlox alone. Oddly, they do not touch my peonies., but these bloom only once in early summer for about 2 weeks and then are done for the season. For the rest of the year, peonies are just a bush. Since you have a fenced yard, the best repellent is a yard dog living in a dog house in the yard. All it takes is one 'yap' out of the dog to scatter a whole herd of deer.

Whoever this is, they're great at identifying just the promising upcoming female blooms. >:( I guess I'll just have to start wrapping every flower and growing tip in netting. I've never seen a chipmunk. My yard is fenced, but not so securely that a rabbit/rat/mouse couldn't get under a gate. They just weren't my first suspect since they never bothered my past years' gardens. I'll check for holes, thanks.