First hand accounts....

This post falls into the category of the odd things people think they see, be it misidentifying a cat as a skunk or so on...

Last night I had the third call in 24 hours for a downed bat, the guy first said he believed it was dead which those who work
with bats know means it is just as likely in torpor.

Then he says while I'm still on the phone that its wing looked injured and immediately then stated, "oh, man the wing just fell off."

To which I said, did it tuck its wing in, or do you see the wing apart from the bat?

He responded, "yup, it's wing just fell off."

I asked if he was going to be there for awhile (commercial property) he responded yes and I said I'd come and get it.

So what did I find?

Dismembered bat?

Takes me out to a small shed and says pointing to a pallet, "that's where the wing fell down there, the bat is here in this net."

I didn't stop to look at the wing, assuming the bat was either dead or needing to be euthanized.

What I see in the net is a female silver-haired bat, wings and all body parts in tact.

Guy says "well what the heck did I see down there."

I'm waiting as he bends down with a light and says, "oh man thats just a leaf!."

Was my second bat of that species in the same day from different parts of town and both were said to be dead or severely injured, neither
were....

Always interesting the calls you get.

Had a buddy tell me the other day a few years back he had a wife telling him on the phone my husband says there is a rattlesnake in the yard
and you need to hurry up, here is a video of it.

My buddy says "that is a pocket gopher maam."

My husband is in the military and he says it is most definitely a western diamondback rattlesnake....

Gopher was in the video clear as day pushing dirt at the front of the hole....

Had a skunk call this year that was a skunk that just climbed up onto the roof of the house....

Couldn't convince her without going out, was a white and black cat that had chased a rock squirrel up onto the
roof and cornered it under the air unit... She still wanted me to look for skunks despite her husband sheepishly saying
I told her it was a cat...

LOL Man, I just love these kinds of post's.

There's not much excuse for this kind of misidentification any more. We had a customer call us and tell us she had a badger under her

garage. We promptly told her it was a woodchuck, not a badger. She said "Nope, it's a badger." She sent us a picture that she took

and she was right. Only badger job I've ever had in the middle of Milwaukee.

Justin, if you tell the customer that pocket gophers are $69, but rattle snakes are $495, that snake turns right back into a pocket

gopher immediately.

Ha! Right you are Wink! Lol!

Can't even begin to tell ya'll how many long-tailed "Black Panthers" are seen and continue to roam my part of the world! LOL

I had a Beaver family living under some concrete pre cast steps..they would always be seen raiding the garden ....

I had to do an attic inspection for skunks. Luckily I was able to sell her the job for the skunk under her front porch.

Barking skunks.......manifested into a red fox who stays outside a yard fence and barks at the pet dog.

Was a skunk under the porch though ! Lol

Can't wait for "It must be rabid because it is out in the day"!! skunk and coon calls when the little ones start showing up in the daytime in june.

Well, yeah. I'm not going to lie to the lady. To seal the deal I threw in a bag of concrete to plug the hole after it was caught.

Easy peasy and customer was happy.

All great examples! Lol!

Yesterday, showed up to a baffled customers house. Decon was used to bait gopher traps just laid on the ground randomly. The customer didn't know what was in his yard, just that it wasn't a squirrel. Turned out to be a yellow bellied marmot.

I figured this guy was doing better than some of the crazier ones. Another couple years and he may not need my help anymore.

Gotta love it.

How about the six-foot copperheads...that are neither?

Had a lady call me one time with a lynx in here back yard. I asked her if it wasn't a bobcat. She told me that we don't have bobcat in Texas, only lynx. She also informed me I needed to learn what animals we had here in Texas. Needless to say I passed on that job. Guess I need to study my native animals some more!

Like Paul often says, "it can pay to listen to your customers".

My mother called one of the local nuisance guys in my hometown and told him she had a beaver in her yard clipping her plants off. He questioned her animal identification as she lives a long ways from any water, but came over to inspect. After inspection he still thought it was a woodchuck, only small woody plants clipped off. Mom said, "my son is a trapper and does the same thing you do, I saw it and it's a beaver". It was a beaver and it was living in the storm sewer across the street from Mom. Beaver had quite a wad of limbs and grass built up in the sewer. Truth was revealed when the nuisance guy was driving by checking traps in early morning hours and spotted the beaver dragging part of Mom's landscaping across the yard.

In my case it was woodchucks.....although I did have a call for beavers chewing mailbox post..low and behold.....they were right !

I had a lady at a rv park that said she seen a black panther next door with the sheep I asked her if what I was poinoting at was it she said oh yes I told her ma'am that is a black lama

My Sis got all upset about some critter chewing on the base of her mailbox post, was her kid and the weed whacker trimming close and "Playing" with it.

had a customer call down near Ozark, mo a few years ago...my tech was with me that day and she said she heard a "chirping" sound in one of the back rooms...I told her a price to do an inspection....she agreed and since we were close by went right over...By the time we got there she told us that she had it narrowed down to their office and every 8 minutes it made the sound...I knew I was looking at some electrical sound so we pretended to look around waiting to hear the noise again. Heard it and I asked if I could look on her computer....she gave me a funny look but said ok...Showed her the little weather bug icon that was flashing about an incoming weather alert.....Then she started cussing out her husband who must have installed it the night before and didn't tell her LOL..she paid me the inspection fee but I would have loved to be a fly on the wall of that house when he got home

have had the call of a snake down a air vent in the bedroom...turned out to be the coil of the pipe just below the vent cover

had one where the handyman told the lady the loud "Chirp" she was hearing was a squirrel in the attic....turns out to be the smoke alarm battery about dead

Had a similar story from a gal calling 2 am in the morning many years ago. Said there was a rattlesnake in her sectional sofa and she was positive it was such. I said the service call would be $250.00 whether I found a snake or anything else it didn't matter. I got there and listened for a little while before disturbing anything.

Then all of a sudden I hear it and knew what it was right away. She said do you hear that I said I sure do. We need to do the paper work now, is this going to be cash or a credit card. She said aren't you going to get the snake first? I said no, our policy for emergency late calls such as this require payment upon arrival on site.

So she gives me a credit card for me to get the information needed to process the transaction. After securing that and calling to run the card I said now I can solve your problem.

I start running my hands along the cushion gaps and recover the rattlesnake. It turns out to be a vintage high tech gadget that was popular in those days, a Pager. Most who had the earlier versions were Drs., lawyers or higher income folks.

Some of you young folks may not know what that is. They had different settings in those days like tones or vibration type settings.

A friend of mine developed the pager many years ago but now has since passed.

The gal wasn't real happy she had to pay me for recovering her boyfriends pager that must have slipped off his belt while lying on the sofa at some point.

Oh well, another problem solved.

People who are likely to pay someone to come out and rescue them from nature, rather than take care of it themselves, are weak and susceptible to hysterical blindness and cannot see what is right in front of them.
We should get special recognition for helping the mentally handicapped. Bless their hearts.

I look at it quite differently. People who pay for someone to rescue them from nature have the brains to not want to screw it up

themselves and the resources to not have to worry about how much it's going to cost. Bless their hearts too.

I always assume they tried to deter or catch whatever it is. I usually ask them when on an estimate what they tried. It reinforces the reason to them why they should pay a professional who has the skills and experience, and will stick with them until the problem is solved.

Some there is no hope for though. We've been treating a small grocery with a kitchen for roaches. It's been going on for a while now. Each time the sanitation is horrible. After I treated, the guy offered to make me breakfast... I'm thinking, I just saw roaches running around your kitchen and there is food all over your floor. You want me to eat here? I politely declined.

Eaten, you've just hit on the reason we hate roach jobs and won't even do bed bugs. It's a housekeeping issue and if you're a slob,

your roaches probably have bed bugs!

Luck trumps skill every time. Customer calls and gives a perfect description of an opossum living under her deck. So I go over and

make my perfect opossum set using marshmallows, anise, and fish paste. She calls the next day and says, "You got him!" So I go to

pick him up and inside my cage is this really nice sized woodchuck. So I scratch my head and ask the customer if she would like me to

reset and she says, "No need. That's what I saw and you caught him right away. Good work!" HUH?

Give her a hand full of cards and tell her to pass them out to all her friends!

I've had experience with both Pager vibratus and nearly-deceased Smokus detectorii.
One that was kinda fun was the guy who needed for me to ID a dropping he'd found next to his easy chair. I picked it up and said, "It's a turtle! " (a chocolate candy cluster). He said,"(Darn) grandkids!"
..and, yes, I couldn't stop thinking about the Baby Ruth scene in Caddyshack!

What would he have done if you'd taken a bite out of it like in the movie? LOL

Call came in from a woman yesterday that there's a beaver running around their yard and continues to go under the porch. After speaking with the woman she was certain it was a beaver and had a flat tail. So I make the trip out and little to my surprise the "BEAVER" was still running laps in the yard. She says that's a beaver right? I reply sorry it's a groundhog, soon as it seen me it skedaddled. She was extremely relieved when I pulled up today and retrieved the trap with the hog in it, as was I due to the fact I was overly confident that it would be in the trap today.