I was out walking my back field, with a canine companion of course [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] , and came upon a 3" sapling/tree back by the ravine. The tree had broken close to the ground, probably from the recent winds, and most of it was at about eye level and a little lower. I noticed right away what looked like a rub. Most of the bark had been rubbed off of a horizontal portion (on one side) and it had a deep gouge in it. It looked very fresh, but none of the leaves looked disturbed and I didn't see any marks. You also had to duck dome small branches to get to it for what that's worth. As I was looking at the surrounding ground I noticed that close to the base, about a foot off the ground, also had bark rubbed off.
Now, here's the weird part, at least to me. The base was on the other side of a barb wire fence. [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img] Granted, the end of the fence was only about 10' away, but I'm thinking a deer wouldn't walk around the fence to keep rubbing the same sapling. I don't know...
I also found what looked like fresh turds (they weren't there yesterday, anyway) in the water's edge of my creek. They looked pretty much like dog turds except they had a lot of seeds in them from the berry trees. No hair or hide. What struck me as odd about this was they were IN the water. What kind of animal takes a crap in the water [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img]
Weird.
Of course, the dog I was walking, a Flat Coated Retriever, was finding all kinds of scat with hide and hair in it. He had quite the nose.