Summer yard clues
Summer clues are driven by heat, insects, and everything that eats them. Lawns brown out from drought, fungus, or the grubs maturing under the turf; Japanese beetles and hornworms hit gardens hard; wasp and hornet colonies reach full size; and the nocturnal grub-diggers — skunks, raccoons — follow the food. The pattern of damage tells you which one you're dealing with.
Common summer clues (70)
Animal Droppings Black Droppings on Your Patio: Rat, Mouse, Bat, or Bird? Black droppings on a patio most often come from mice, rats, or bats, with birds and squirrels as runners-up. Mouse droppings are about 1/4 inch with pointed ends, rat droppings run 1/2 to 3/4 inch with blunt ends, and bat droppings look mouse-sized but crumble into shiny insect fragments. Where the droppings sit — piled under the eaves versus scattered along a wall — narrows it down fast. Read the guide → Lawn Problems Brown Patches in Grass: How to Read What Killed the Turf Brown patches in your grass are most often caused by fungal disease, white grubs eating the roots, dog urine, or summer drought dormancy. The pattern is the diagnosis: circles point to fungus, turf that lifts like carpet points to grubs, and small spots ringed with dark green grass point to dog urine. Read the guide → Yard Holes Dirt Mounds in Lawn: Mole, Gopher, or Ant? Read the Shape The shape of a dirt mound is the fastest identification tool in the yard: moles build round volcano-shaped mounds with no visible hole, pocket gophers build fan- or crescent-shaped mounds with a plugged hole to one side, and ants, earthworms, and digger bees leave much smaller piles. Match your mound to one of those shapes and you've usually named the animal. Read the guide → Lawn Problems Grass Torn Up in Patches Overnight: Who's Digging and Why Grass torn up in patches — especially damage that appears overnight — is almost always an animal digging for grubs under your turf. Raccoons flip and roll back chunks of sod, skunks drill small cone-shaped holes, and crows peck and pull tufts by day. The digger is the symptom; the grubs underneath are the cause. Read the guide → Yard Holes Holes in Your Lawn Overnight? What Digs While You Sleep Holes that appear in the lawn overnight are almost always the work of nocturnal foragers — skunks, raccoons, and in the South, armadillos — hunting for grubs and worms under your turf. The shape of the damage tells you who visited, and in many cases the real fix is dealing with the grubs that attracted them. Read the guide → Home Exterior Clues Mud Tubes Near Your Foundation: The Termite Warning Sign Pencil-width mud tunnels running up your foundation wall are most likely shelter tubes built by subterranean termites — the single most important early warning sign of an active infestation. Mud dauber wasp nests and rain-splashed soil can look similar at a glance, but termite tubes follow continuous vertical paths from soil to wood. Of every clue on this site, this is the one that should never wait: schedule a licensed termite inspection promptly. Read the guide → Bugs & Eggs Tiny Yellow Eggs Under Leaves: Pest or Friend? Tiny yellow eggs on the underside of leaves usually belong to squash bugs, ladybugs, Colorado potato beetles, or whiteflies. Identify them before you do anything — ladybug eggs look almost identical to pest eggs, and crushing them destroys one of the best aphid killers in your garden. Read the guide → Yard Holes Two-Inch Holes in Yard: Chipmunk, Rat, or Something Else? A round hole about two inches across is classic burrow size, and the usual suspects are chipmunks, rats, and thirteen-lined ground squirrels. Chipmunk holes are clean with no soil pile, rat holes are worn and hug structures, and ground squirrel holes sit in open, sunny lawn — those three clues sort out most cases. Read the guide → Plant Damage What Is Eating My Tomato Leaves at Night? Tomato leaves that disappear overnight are most often the work of tomato hornworms, cutworms, slugs, or flea beetles — and if whole branches are gone, rabbits or deer. The size of the bites, whether there are slime trails, and how low on the plant the damage sits will point you to the culprit, and a ten-minute flashlight check after dark usually confirms it. Read the guide → Mushrooms & Growths White Mushrooms in Your Lawn: Why They Appear, What to Do White mushrooms popping up in a lawn are the fruiting bodies of fungi that are already living in your soil, usually feeding on decomposing roots, old stumps, or thatch. They surge after rain or heavy watering, and in most cases they're a sign of biologically healthy soil — not a lawn disease. The main job is keeping kids and pets from eating them. Read the guide → Tracks, Nests & Outdoor Clues Animal Burrow Under Your Shed? Who's Living There A burrow entrance under your shed most likely belongs to a groundhog, skunk, rabbit, or rat, and the hole itself usually names the digger: groundhogs leave a 10–12 inch opening with a fan of excavated dirt, skunks announce themselves by smell, and rat holes are only 2–3 inches across. Before evicting anyone, check the calendar — from spring into midsummer there may be babies down there, and sealing them in creates a far worse problem than the burrow. Read the guide → Lawn Problems Ant Hills All Over the Lawn: Which Ants, and What to Do A lawn dotted with ant hills is usually hosting turfgrass ants or field ants, which are more of a mowing nuisance than a threat. The critical exception is in the southern US, where dome-shaped mounds with no visible entrance hole can be red imported fire ants — an aggressive, painfully stinging species that changes the response from 'rake and relax' to 'treat and keep kids away.' Read the guide → Tracks, Nests & Outdoor Clues Bird's Nest in Your Porch Wreath? Here's Who Moved In A nest tucked into your front-door wreath was most likely built by a house finch or an American robin, two species famous for choosing porch decorations. If the nest holds eggs or chicks, federal law protects it — moving or destroying an active native bird nest violates the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The good news: the whole event, from first egg to empty nest, usually takes only four to five weeks. Read the guide → Home Exterior Clues Black Streaks on Your Roof: Algae, Moss, or Something Worse? Black streaks running down your asphalt shingles are almost always a blue-green algae called Gloeocapsa magma — a cosmetic problem, not mold and not roof failure. The streaks show up first on north-facing and shaded slopes where moisture lingers, and they darken as the algae colony spreads year after year. Moss, lichen, and chimney soot can look similar, but each behaves differently and only moss actually threatens the shingles. Read the guide → Bugs & Eggs Clusters of Orange Eggs on Leaves: Crush or Leave? Clusters of orange eggs on leaf undersides most often belong to Colorado potato beetles on potatoes and tomatoes, or squash bugs on vine crops — both worth removing. But ladybugs lay very similar-looking yellow-orange clusters, and theirs should stay. Check the host plant and the egg shape before you crush anything. Read the guide → Lawn Problems Dark Green Circles in Your Lawn: Fairy Rings and Other Causes A dark green circle or ring in your lawn is most often a fairy ring — an underground fungus releasing nitrogen as it grows outward — or grass feeding on something buried: a decomposing stump, old roots, spilled fertilizer, or a septic drain field line. Nearly all of these are cosmetic rather than a threat to the lawn. Read the guide → Yard Holes Deep, Narrow Holes in the Yard: 5 Likely Causes A narrow hole that drops straight down and seems to go forever is usually a crayfish burrow, a cicada killer wasp tunnel, a vole shaft, or an old rodent burrow now used by a snake. Whether there's a mud chimney, a soil fan, or nothing at all around the opening is the fastest way to tell them apart. Read the guide → Animal Droppings Droppings on Your Deck Railing: What's Running the Rails? Droppings on a deck railing are most often from mice, which treat railings as elevated highways between the yard and your house, leaving 1/4-inch pointed pellets scattered along the route. White splotches point to birds perching overhead, and a small pile of crumbly dark pellets beneath the eaves suggests a bat roost above. Where the droppings sit — spread along the rail versus piled in one spot — is your best first clue. Read the guide → Animal Droppings Droppings That Look Like Coffee Grounds: Frass or Guano? A pile that looks like spilled coffee grounds is very often not droppings at all — it's carpenter ant frass, the sawdust-like debris ants push out of wood they're excavating, and it's a warning sign worth taking seriously. The other candidates are drywood termite pellets (hard, uniform, six-sided), bat guano (crumbles into shiny powder), and ordinary mouse droppings. Where the pile sits — under a window sill, beam, or roost — usually tells you which one you have. Read the guide → Tracks, Nests & Outdoor Clues Feathers Scattered in Your Yard: What Happened Here? A patch of scattered feathers in your yard usually means one of three things: a hawk plucked a caught bird there, a cat made a kill, or a bird is simply molting. The pattern is the evidence — a dense circle of feathers with no body points to a hawk's plucking post, feathers plus a partially eaten bird points to a cat or a fox, and scattered single feathers appearing over days is just late-summer molt. Read the guide → Plant Damage Flowers Eaten Overnight: Who Raided Your Garden Beds? Flowers that vanish overnight are most often deer or rabbits, and which flowers were taken narrows it fast — tulip and hosta blooms nipped off whole point to deer, while low plants clipped at a clean angle point to rabbits. Petals riddled with ragged holes but still attached usually mean earwigs or slugs working after dark, and shredded rose blooms are Japanese beetles feeding into dusk. Read the guide → Yard Holes Golf Ball-Size Holes in Your Yard: What Dug Them? A hole about the size of a golf ball — roughly 1.5 to 2 inches across — is classic burrow-entrance territory, most often chipmunks, ground squirrels, or rats. Where the hole sits, whether there's a soil pile beside it, and what part of the country you live in will usually settle which one it is. Read the guide → Tracks, Nests & Outdoor Clues Grass-Lined Nest in Your Lawn? It's Probably Baby Rabbits A shallow, grass-and-fur-lined depression in your lawn is almost always an eastern cottontail rabbit nest, and it is very rarely abandoned — mother rabbits visit only at dawn and dusk to avoid leading predators to their babies. A nest of speckled eggs on open ground, by contrast, usually belongs to a killdeer or another ground-nesting bird. In both cases the right move is to leave it alone and protect the spot for a few weeks. Read the guide → Bugs & Eggs Green Caterpillars on Plants: Which One Is Eating Yours? The green caterpillar on your plants is most likely a cabbage worm if it's on broccoli or kale, a tomato hornworm if it's large and has a tail spike, or a sawfly larva if it's on roses. Which plant is being eaten narrows it down fast, and handpicking plus row covers handle most of them — no spraying required. Keep in mind that some green caterpillars grow up to be butterflies worth keeping around. Read the guide → Animal Droppings Green Droppings on Your Lawn: Geese, Rabbits, or the Dog? Green droppings on a lawn are almost always from Canada geese — their waste is tubular, about 2 to 3 inches long, and green to greenish-brown because their diet is nearly all grass. Small round pellets with a green tint point to rabbits feeding on fresh spring growth, and a green-tinged pile of normal dog waste usually just means a dog that's been eating grass. If you live near a pond, lake, golf course, or park, geese are the answer most of the time. Read the guide → Yard Holes Holes Around Tree Roots: Squirrels, Voles, or Wasps? Holes at the base of a tree usually belong to squirrels burying and retrieving nuts, voles working the mulch line, or rats denning in the sheltered pocket under the root flare — and sometimes to nothing living at all, since decayed old roots leave open channels in the soil. The one to identify before you get close is a yellowjacket colony nesting in a hollow among the roots. Read the guide → Yard Holes Holes in Flower Beds Overnight? Meet the Night Shift Flower beds dug up overnight are almost always animals hunting food, not making homes: skunks and raccoons dig for grubs and worms in the soft soil, squirrels bury and retrieve nuts, cats use loose beds as litter boxes, and across the South armadillos root through beds nose-first. Each leaves a different style of hole, so one careful morning inspection usually names your visitor. Read the guide → Plant Damage Holes in Hosta Leaves: Slugs, Earwigs, Hail, or Deer? Holes in hosta leaves are most often slug feeding — hostas are the slug's favorite plant in the American shade garden, and silvery slime trails confirm it. Earwigs chew similar ragged holes in hot dry spells, hail punches holes with bruised edges all on the same date, and deer skip the holes entirely and eat whole leaves down to the stalks. Read the guide → Yard Holes Holes in Lawn With Dead Grass Around Them: What It Means When holes and dead grass show up together, the dead grass is usually the underlying story: grubs kill turf roots and then skunks, raccoons, and birds dig holes going after them, while vole runways, yellowjacket ground nests, and dog urine spots each pair dying grass with their own style of hole. Figure out whether the grass died first or the digging came first, and the diagnosis usually follows. Read the guide → Yard Holes Holes in Mulch Beds: Who's Digging Through Your Mulch? Disturbed mulch usually comes down to a simple distinction: mulch flipped and scattered on top means squirrels or birds foraging through it, while an actual hole punched down into the soil beneath means a chipmunk, rat, or cat. Squirrels and chipmunks are the everyday culprits; the pattern of the mess tells you whether you're looking at snacking, caching, burrowing, or a litter box. Read the guide → Plant Damage Holes in My Tomatoes: Which Pest Is Ruining the Fruit? Holes in tomatoes are most often the work of tomato fruitworms (one clean round entry hole), hornworms (large shallow gouges), birds (peck marks in ripe fruit), slugs (rasped pits where fruit touches soil), or squirrels (single bites, fruit carried off). Sunken leathery patches on the bottom of the fruit aren't a pest at all — that's blossom-end rot. Read the guide → Yard Holes Holes in Yard After Rain: Why They Appear Overnight Holes that appear after a good rain are usually not new digging at all — rain exposes earthworm burrows, washes open old animal tunnels, and collapses settling soil, while wet weather brings crayfish and emerging cicadas to the surface. Most rain-revealed holes are harmless; the size and what surrounds each hole tells you which kind you have. Read the guide → Yard Holes Holes Near Your Foundation: Causes and When to Act Holes right along a foundation usually come from chipmunks, Norway rats, or voles, all of which like the shelter a house wall provides — but water pouring from downspouts and settling backfill soil carve foundation-line holes too. Sorting burrow from washout matters, because a rat burrow against the house is the one that needs fast professional attention. Read the guide → Yard Holes Holes Under the Fence: What's Digging In (or Out)? A hole under a fence is usually a travel gap scraped out by rabbits, skunks, or a neighborhood dog — or the edge of a real burrow if a groundhog has moved in along the fence line. The key distinction is pass-through versus home: a shallow trench under the boards means something is commuting through your yard, while a deep hole with a big dirt pile means something is living there. Read the guide → Animal Droppings Large Droppings in Your Yard: Raccoon, Coyote, Dog, or Fox? Large droppings in a yard usually come from raccoons, coyotes, neighborhood dogs, or foxes. Raccoon droppings are tubular with blunt ends and often accumulate in one repeated spot called a latrine; coyote droppings are rope-like and tapered with visible fur, bone, or seeds; fox droppings are smaller, twisted, and pointed at the ends. A raccoon latrine deserves special caution because of raccoon roundworm. Read the guide → Yard Holes Large Holes in Yard: Groundhog, Fox, Skunk, or Armadillo? A hole 6 inches across or bigger is a den entrance, and in most American yards the owner is a groundhog — an 8- to 12-inch hole with a big dirt mound is their signature. Foxes, armadillos, and skunks dig or borrow similar burrows, especially under sheds, decks, and porches, so smell, mound size, and location are what separate them. Never fill a large hole until you know it's empty. Read the guide → Lawn Problems Lawn Dying in Patches Despite Watering? Find the Real Cause If dead patches keep spreading no matter how much you water, water was never the problem — something is attacking the grass or the soil beneath it. The most frequent culprits are grubs eating roots, chinch bugs along hot sunny edges, compacted or debris-filled soil, fungal patch disease, and dog urine. Each one leaves a distinct fingerprint you can check in minutes. Read the guide → Plant Damage Leaves Chewed From the Edges: How to Read the Bite Marks Leaves eaten inward from the edges are usually caterpillars, grasshoppers, or — if the edges show neat crescent-shaped notches — adult weevils feeding at night. When whole leaf sections or stems are missing, the cut itself is the clue: a clean angled snip means rabbits, while ragged torn edges mean deer. Read the guide → Tracks, Nests & Outdoor Clues Mud Nests Under Your Eaves: Swallows, Wasps, or Daubers? Mud structures under your eaves were built either by swallows — barn or cliff swallows, which are federally protected birds — or by mud dauber wasps, which are docile solitary insects. A gray papery umbrella-shaped comb is neither: that's a paper wasp nest, and it's the only one of the three that stings defensively. Identify the builder before you reach for a scraper, because the right response is different for each. Read the guide → Mushrooms & Growths Mushroom Rings in Grass: What a Fairy Ring Is Telling You A circle or arc of mushrooms in your grass is a fairy ring: a single underground fungus colony that started at one point and has been expanding outward ever since, fruiting mushrooms at its edge after rain. Fairy rings are mostly cosmetic and notoriously hard to eliminate — for the vast majority of lawns, the right plan is managing the look and removing the mushrooms, not fighting the fungus. Read the guide → Yard Holes One-Inch Holes in Lawn: Identify the Digger by Size Holes about an inch wide in a lawn are most often the work of voles, young chipmunks, ground-nesting bees, or — in wet, low-lying yards — crayfish. An inch is a telling size: it's too big for most insects and too small for rats or full chipmunk burrows, so checking depth, soil, and location will usually name the digger. Read the guide → Mushrooms & Growths Orange Fungus in Mulch: Stinkhorns, Slime, and Siding Spots Orange growths in mulch are almost always fungi feeding on the wood itself — most often stinkhorns (the smelly orange fingers), orange peel fungus, or a slime mold. They're harmless to plants and people who leave them alone. The one mulch fungus that costs money is artillery fungus, which shoots tar-like black dots onto siding and cars. Read the guide → Lawn Problems Orange Powder on Grass? It's Almost Always Lawn Rust That orange dust coating your grass — and rubbing off on shoes, mowers, and the dog — is almost certainly lawn rust, a fungal disease that shows up on slow-growing, underfed lawns in late summer. It looks alarming but is harmless to people and pets, and it usually clears up with a light feeding and better mowing rather than any fungicide. Read the guide → Plant Damage Plant Stems Cut Near the Ground: Cutworms or Rabbits? A seedling toppled with its stem severed right at the soil line is the classic signature of cutworms, night-feeding caterpillars that curl in the soil by day. Clean 45-degree cuts a few inches higher point to rabbits, while stems gnawed through at the base — often with the plant left uneaten — suggest voles or, less often, squirrels. Read the guide → Yard Holes Quarter-Size Holes in Yard: Wasps, Cicadas, or Voles? Holes about the size of a quarter — roughly an inch across — most often belong to cicada killer wasps, emerging cicadas, ground-nesting bees, or voles. The soil is the fastest clue: a big horseshoe of excavated dirt means a cicada killer, a clean hole with no soil means a cicada came out of it, and a small crumbly rim means bees. Watch briefly from a distance before getting close, in case wasps own it. Read the guide → Plant Damage Round Holes in Leaves: Bee, Beetle, Slug, or Caterpillar? Perfectly circular holes or half-moon notches cut from leaf edges are almost always leafcutter bees, which are beneficial pollinators that do no lasting harm. Rounded but irregular holes in the middle of leaves point instead to slugs, caterpillars, or — if the holes are tiny and numerous — flea beetles. Read the guide → Home Exterior Clues Round Holes in Wood With Sawdust: Bees, Ants, or Beetles? A perfectly round hole about 1/2 inch across with a pile of coarse sawdust beneath it is the signature of carpenter bees, especially on bare or weathered wood. Fine sawdust-like debris coming from cracks and seams rather than a drilled hole points to carpenter ants, while clusters of much smaller holes are usually old wood-boring beetle exits. The hole's size, the texture of the sawdust, and whether you see insect traffic will tell you which one you have. Read the guide → Plant Damage Seedlings Disappearing Overnight: What's Taking Them? Seedlings that vanish overnight are usually felled by cutworms, eaten entirely by slugs, pulled up by birds, or clipped by rabbits — and sometimes they were killed by damping-off fungus rather than eaten at all. What's left behind decides it: a toppled stem means cutworms, slime trails mean slugs, a pinched wilted stem means fungus, and nothing at all usually means slugs or a bird. Read the guide → Yard Holes Shallow Divots in Lawn: Foraging Damage Decoded Shallow divots — little scoops that stop within an inch or three of the surface — are foraging marks, not burrows: squirrels caching and retrieving nuts, skunks drilling for grubs at night, birds probing at dawn, or a dog freelancing. Because three of those four are hunting grubs, a lawn suddenly covered in divots is often really a message about what's living under the turf. Read the guide → Mushrooms & Growths Shelf Fungus on a Tree Trunk: A Sign of Decay Inside the Tree A shelf or bracket fungus growing from a living tree's trunk is a red flag: it means the fungus has been decaying wood inside the tree, often for years, before producing that visible 'conk.' The tree may still look healthy, but internal decay weakens its structure — so the right move is an assessment by an ISA-certified arborist, not knocking the fungus off. Read the guide → Bugs & Eggs Shiny Green Beetles on Plants: Japanese Beetles or Friends? Shiny metallic-green beetles clustered on your plants are most often Japanese beetles, especially if they're piled on roses, grapes, or linden leaves in early summer and the foliage is turning to lace. Green June beetles, iridescent dogbane beetles, and quick-running tiger beetles are the usual look-alikes — and two of those are actually good news. Which beetle you have decides whether you act or leave it be. Read the guide → Plant Damage Skeletonized Leaves: What Eats Everything but the Veins? Leaves chewed down to a lacy network of veins are usually the work of Japanese beetles or sawfly larvae such as rose slugs and pear slugs. Japanese beetles feed in plain sight in daytime swarms during midsummer, while sawfly larvae hide on leaf undersides and 'window-pane' the leaf from below — and stippled, bleached leaves that aren't actually eaten point to lace bugs instead. Read the guide → Mushrooms & Growths Slime Mold in Mulch: The Gross-Looking Blob That's Harmless A foamy yellow, tan, or orange blob spreading across your mulch is almost certainly a slime mold — most often the species nicknamed 'dog vomit slime mold.' Despite the revolting look, it's completely harmless to plants, pets, and people, it usually rides in on fresh hardwood mulch, and it needs no treatment: rake it out, hose it apart, or just let it dry up on its own. Read the guide → Bugs & Eggs Small White Cocoons on Plants: Don't Destroy Them Yet Small white cocoons on your plants could be braconid wasp cocoons, mealybugs, spittlebug foam, or ordinary moth pupae — and the difference matters, because braconid cocoons are one of the best things you can find in a garden. If the white capsules are riding on the back of a fat green caterpillar, leave everything exactly where it is: tiny parasitic wasps are already destroying that pest for you. Read the guide → Plant Damage Something Digging in Potted Plants? Here's the Likely Culprit Something digging in your potted plants is most often a squirrel burying or retrieving nuts — the number one cause by far — followed by chipmunks, birds taking dust baths, raccoons hunting grubs at night, or a cat using the pot as a litter box. Daytime digging with small neat pits points to squirrels; pots trashed overnight point to raccoons. Read the guide → Lawn Problems Spongy Lawn That Lifts Up? Grubs, Thatch, or Moles Below A lawn that feels spongy underfoot or lifts up like carpet usually means one of three things: white grubs have eaten the roots, a thick thatch layer has built up under the grass, or moles are tunneling just beneath the surface. A simple tug on the turf and a look underneath will tell you which one you're dealing with. Read the guide → Plant Damage Sticky Residue on Leaves: Honeydew and What's Making It A sticky, shiny film on leaves is honeydew — the sugary waste excreted by sap-sucking insects like aphids, soft scale, whiteflies, or mealybugs feeding somewhere above the sticky spot. Look up and check leaf undersides to find the source, and don't be surprised if ants are patrolling the plant: they farm these insects for the honeydew. Read the guide → Bugs & Eggs Swarm of Flying Insects in Yard: Termites, Ants, or Gnats? A sudden swarm of flying insects in your yard is most often flying ants, termite swarmers, mating clouds of midges or gnats, emerging ground bees, or mayflies near water. Most swarms are harmless and gone within days — but a termite swarm coming from the soil near your house means you should schedule an inspection right away, so the first job is telling termites apart from everything else. Read the guide → Animal Droppings Tiny Black Specks on Your Deck: Frass, Fungus, or Droppings? Tiny black specks on a deck usually turn out to be caterpillar frass raining down from trees overhead, artillery fungus spores that glue themselves to surfaces, spider droppings, or mouse droppings. The quickest test is whether the specks wipe away: frass and droppings brush off, while artillery fungus dots are stuck fast. Where the specks appear — under a tree canopy, near mulch, or along the house wall — points to the source. Read the guide → Bugs & Eggs Tiny White Bugs Under Leaves: What They Are, What to Do Tiny white bugs on the undersides of leaves are most often whiteflies, mealybugs, woolly aphids, or spider mites. The quickest test is to disturb the plant: whiteflies scatter into the air instantly, while mealybugs and woolly aphids stay put in cottony patches. All of them respond to gentle controls — a hard spray of water and insecticidal soap — so there's no need to reach for harsh chemicals. Read the guide → Animal Droppings Tubular Droppings in the Garden: Raccoon, Opossum, or Skunk? Tubular droppings in a garden bed most often come from raccoons, opossums, or skunks raiding for produce, grubs, and insects — though garter snakes and even toads leave surprisingly substantial droppings too. Blunt ends and berry seeds point to raccoon, tapered curves to opossum, and a crumbly texture full of shiny insect parts to skunk. Because raccoon droppings can carry roundworm eggs, droppings in a food garden also raise a produce-safety question worth taking seriously. Read the guide → Home Exterior Clues Wasp Nest Under the Eaves: Which Wasp, and How Careful to Be A nest under your eaves is most likely paper wasps if you can see open honeycomb cells on an umbrella-shaped comb, bald-faced hornets if it's a fully enclosed gray papery ball, or mud daubers if it's made of dried mud tubes. Paper wasps and hornets will defend their nest, while mud daubers almost never sting. Identify the builder from a distance first — the right response ranges from leaving it alone to calling a licensed pest control professional. Read the guide → Bugs & Eggs Webs on Tree Branches: Tent Caterpillars or Webworms? Silky webs in your trees are most likely eastern tent caterpillars if it's spring and the web sits in a branch fork, or fall webworms if it's late summer and the web wraps the tips of branches. Both look alarming but rarely do lasting harm to a healthy tree — and whatever you do, never try to burn a nest out of a tree. Read the guide → Plant Damage What Is Eating My Pepper Plants? How to Identify the Pest Pepper plants are most often eaten by hornworms, slugs, flea beetles, aphids, or cutworms — and if entire tops or whole plants disappear, rabbits or deer. The pattern of damage tells you which one: tiny pinholes point to flea beetles, big ragged missing chunks to hornworms, slime trails to slugs, and clean angled cuts to a four-legged visitor. Read the guide → Animal Droppings White Droppings on Your Fence: Which Bird (or Lizard) Was It? White droppings on a fence are almost always from birds — the white part is uric acid, which is how birds excrete waste instead of urine. The size and pattern tell you whether it's songbirds using the fence as a perch, larger birds like doves or hawks, or, in the southern U.S., geckos and anoles, whose small dark droppings carry a distinctive white tip. Light deposits are harmless; large accumulations deserve careful cleanup. Read the guide → Bugs & Eggs White Fuzzy Bugs Flying Around? Meet the 'Fairy Flies' Tiny white fuzzy bugs drifting through the air are usually woolly aphids — sometimes nicknamed 'fairy flies' or 'fluff bugs' — riding the breeze between host trees. Whiteflies that billow up when you brush a plant, hackberry woolly aphids, and waxy planthopper nymphs are the other common sources. Nearly all of them are harmless to you and only a minor stress on healthy plants. Read the guide → Plant Damage White Squiggly Lines on Leaves: Leafminers Explained Those winding white or pale tan trails are made by leafminers — tiny fly, moth, or sawfly larvae that hatch inside the leaf and eat a tunnel between its upper and lower surfaces. The damage looks dramatic but is almost always cosmetic on ornamentals; picking off mined leaves is usually all the control a home garden needs. Read the guide → Plant Damage Yellow Leaves With Brown Spots: Disease, Mites, or Aging? Yellow leaves with brown spots are most often a fungal leaf spot disease, early blight (on tomatoes, with its bullseye-ringed spots), bacterial spot, or spider mite feeding that starts as fine pale stippling. A few yellowing lower leaves on an otherwise healthy plant, though, are usually just natural aging. Where the spots sit, their shape, and whether they have rings or halos point to the cause. Read the guide → Mushrooms & Growths Yellow Mushrooms in Potted Plants: Harmless or a Problem? Bright yellow mushrooms popping up in a potted plant are almost certainly Leucocoprinus birnbaumii, the flowerpot parasol — a tropical fungus that rides into your home in potting soil and fruits when conditions turn warm and moist. It won't hurt your plant at all; it lives on decaying organic matter in the mix, not on roots. The only real concern is that the mushrooms are toxic if eaten, so households with small children or pets that nibble should remove them. Read the guide → Lawn Problems Yellow Spots in Lawn: Urine, Fertilizer, or Something Fungal? Yellow spots in a lawn most often come from dog urine, fertilizer burn, lawn rust, iron deficiency, or overwatering. Scattered spots with green rings point to a dog; stripes or spots that match your spreader pattern point to fertilizer; orange dust on your shoes points to rust fungus. Read the guide →