I think the branches were alive. I don't know that I'd call them twigs. Some of them are up to 8 feet long. There are approximately 20 stripped branches now that I look. Also, the tree is more like 35 - 40 feet tall. I think it's 20 years old. I agree that it shouldn't hurt the tree too much, but I'm jsut wondering what I should do. Do I need to prune off all those branches? What a pain. I would definitely require a ladder or some tree climbing. Would you guys try to reduce the chances that the animal will do this to another 20 branches next time? If so how? Thanks.

The Milk Dud fairy? We need some dimensions here...size, texture, shape, etc... there are lots of possibilities. Believe it or not, the caterpillars of some of the giant silk moths can leave a huge pellet, although it is hard to confuse it with anything else due to the shape and texture, which is like a small knobby-covered barrel. Do you have trees that overhang the area? Still, these shouldn't be larger than rat scat.... Frog and toad scat is more like a stretched-out oblong shape, hard to confuse it with anything else. Could be squirrel...what is in this area that would be an attractant to them? Look around, take notes, and get back to us. Now I am definitely interested. Gee, how depressing...anything coliform in nature and I sit up and take notice??

Well, she can't wake it up since the post is over a year old, lol. But I think that you are on the right track, Bamboo. I'd even go so far as to guess that it (or they) might be a little screech owl. Such a roosting place would be exceedingly unusual, but in these days of devastating habitat loss, there's no telling where we will find wild animals anymore. Screech owls are very small. Too bad that the original poster didn't get back to the forum and tell us how high this roost was, if it was accessible to anything without wings.

Hi All, Thanks for your responses! Well, the Trumpet Vine has not been "attacked" lately. So that is okay. We stopped hanging suet cakes high up in the trees out front for the summer so no report there. We think the Coons were the thieves in the night there... But we do know what was digging at and around the bird feeding skid....my husband saw them. Rats. I did not like this one bit and was upset.....husband stopped feeding the birds right away. Filled the holes, cleaned up all the feed he could and set the skid up against the Hemlock. It wasn't long until he didn't see any Rats. We read some place that they will move on when the food supply stops and it seems they did. We used to have many feral cats that came thru here but our cat club has been getting them into the tnr program and rarely see any which is really a good thing. I don't know what we will do this winter about feeding the birds. We have a big feeder on the deck that we set up for winter so we can see the birds close up. Will they return right away and the problem will be back? We live in a nice neighborhood and I am sure the neighbors would be very unhappy if they knew we had this problem. Guess it is a wait and see situation right now....thanks again for your ideas! Shirley