Need Help In Central Texas.........

[Bigtex]

Here's a neat find from the other day, and have been finding these for many years......the Sotol snack. Native Americans loved it, and the BF's down here too. The young plants have sweet tender meat at the bottom of the leaf where it attaches to the heart. You pull the inner leafs out, be careful.....they have serrated edges and will cut the the fool out of you. Then you scrape the tender white meat off with your teeth the same way you would eat an artichoke leaf. The lil snack pictured bellow is typical in the way it looks when I find them, but this one was 24 hours fresh, as they start turning brown within a few days.

 

Two of the pics show where something with a hand was pulling on it......there would be blood on it if I tried, they are tough to pull out with sharp edges. The last pic shows 2 areas where at least that many grabbed a hand full to eat in piece, and this is also typical of the way I find these. I've got 100's of pics of this, and liked this one because it was so fresh:)

[JustCurious]

I'd think something like that would have eDNA from saliva on the ends. 

[Bigtex]

I'm sure it does, 2 or 3 had what looked like semi-dried slobber on them. Waste of my money to have them tested though, IMO......believe me, they are better off as a Cryptid, and more fun for us.

[JKH]

Plus that, Tex. Love the bigfoot buffets you and others observe over time.

 

[Bigtex]

Thanks JKH......good to hear from you:)

[SWWASAS]

That trading thing is interesting.    I wonder what would happen if you left a human bone?    Would BF leave a BF bone?   Talk about a treasure!.     Since a human bone would be difficult to get and have legally perhaps you need to get a tooth from a kid who has lost one.    Would a human baby tooth get a BF baby tooth in a trade?   Might be worth a try? 

[Bigtex]

I will be taking some time off from the Gift Tree, probably a month or so. Don't think they like what I have been doing over there of late starting with hiding the mini audio recorder, and am pretty sure they have been observing me. For starters, I am parking as close as I can for quicker trips in & out to check it, still a 20 minute hike each way, and my older truck with the hi-po motor sounds loud and distinct, with the sound traveling down the ravines, giving them plenty of time to head over to watch me. Last week I did about 20 minutes of tree trimming to get the area ready for one of my home-made camera traps, and will have 3 cameras in play plus audio if I decide to do this or not. 

 

Went to check yesterday, and they apparently left me another 'message', and bit the head off my little bird!  Here's a before & after pic of my bird placement, and you can see the skull was moved, also, they are checking every time for another recorder under that rock.

 

Lulu found the bird, and was sniffing it very intently for just under a minute, then looked & sniffed towards the overlooking ridge-line.........I can almost guarantee something was up there judging from her actions. Third pic shows her sniffing the bird (red arrow), and the Gift Tree is a little to the left of the green mark. The blue lines are the steps it took before biting off the head and throwing the rest on the ground......looked around for the head, but haven't found it yet.

 

Last pic is a close-up of the bird, flat looking teeth impressions, and the tail is missing too.

 

It appears the head was bitten off, this is thick hard plastic, what on earth could/would do this? I took it as yet another message:)

[Bigtex]

Hello my dear friends at the BFF.......I am back after my hiatus, been doing plenty of BF research, and a lot of hopefully cool stuff to share.......stay tuned, I need to go through the thread, and try to pick up where I left off:)

 

Hope to hear from all my buddies here, drop me an email or post, let me know how you are, and what you have been up to. 

[Catmandoo]

Tis the season for trick-or-treat. Have you thought about leaving a small pumpkin at the gifting location?  It is food and available now for cheap. Scraps left behind may have a 'bite pattern'.  Diameter is a factor for possible bite marks. A small pumpkin would leave a small mark should they/it decide to throw it at you ( could become a hard hat area. Wear your PPE ).

 

Consider that leaving a pumpkin could be called littering. Might be a one time shot. If they are watching, and you find a scrap to look for teeth patterns, they will know. 2nd pumpkin offering would tell.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Catmandoo

[Catmandoo]

The before and after pumpkin seed trail may be interesting. Pile of scat with pumpkin seeds would be unique.

[BigTreeWalker]

5 hours ago, Bigtex said:

Hope to hear from all my buddies here, drop me an email or post, let me know how you are, and what you have been up to. 

 

HI Bigtex, good to hear from you. I have to admit I haven't been spending much time here in the forums this past summer. 

 

Also good to see others considering bite marks and teeth radii. Getting people to consider that evidence was the main reason for me to start posting here in the first place.

[Bigtex]

Dang.....last post was in March, so much has happened since then. I'm going through several months of pics, and try to maintain some type of progression, plus read through the last several pages to get myself back in the groove.......give me a day or 3, and will be back up to speed:)

 

By the way Cat, lovin' the pumpkin idea, with or without a carved face? 

[Catmandoo]

^^^^ Funny.  No carving. Keep pulp and seeds intact. I bought 2 little pumpkins. Little because I am not packing big pumpkins uphill in a trail less area. The stems are about 3 inches long to test for opposed thumb-finger.  The pumpkin  shape is globular with a flat spot on the bottom so they will not roll easily. I am going to cut through at the 'equator' so that the top half can be 'lifted' off. The stems are firm but will show teeth marks ( as in pesky bear ).  Left behind rind may show teeth/beak marks: Raven,  blue jay, bear, coyote, squirrel, chipmunk and others.  Ravens have powerful beaks and are strong. In my animal inventory at this site,  I would think that a Raven is the only bird that could lift the top off of a 3 pound pumpkin.  Orange color is different for them and the cut will increase olfactory signaling. Offered one at a time.

[Bigtex]

Looks like I left off with the activity at my Gift Tree......as mentioned a few posts back, they didn't like the mini audio recorder I hid out there, but not good enough as they found and took it. They quit taking the Peanut Butter jars too, and 10 had gone missing to that point. I started finding the lids, a few pictured previously, and a few more since. There are some interesting marks on some of them, but nothing with a WOW factor. What did get a WOW factor is I started finding the empty jars along suspected BF trails, and all about a mile from the Gift Tree in different directions. Maybe that's how long it takes them to eat the contents, and discard the jar? To me, it appears the jars are being grabbed at the top & bottom and twisted in half. A few of us have tried, this feat requires super hand strength I assure you, and nobody came close to even getting movement on the (full) jar. Look at the colored outline on the pics, and you can see where something with a hand grabbed it on the bottom, causing indentations, and what appears to be finger nail marks. There are little critter teeth marks on it, but IMO these came after it was discarded.......not sue if they understand the lid function, but guess if you can rip them in half, why bother:) 

[BigTreeWalker]

Bigtex, just curious, what's the diameter of that jar? Looking at that I think those are teeth marks on the bottom. Being so parallel I think finger nails would have a hard time making those marks.