The kitchen visitor mystery

"Jim, there's something getting into my kitchen, and I can't figure out what, or who it is - and I can't catch it!" Brent McGregor exclaimed when he and Kara Mickaelson were over for Christmas Eve supper recently.

Then he added, "Got any ideas...?"

We went through the usual list of possibilities, naming the Number One suspect of the night, our resident bushy-tailed woodrat (AKA, packrat). But we both agreed that it should have been caught in one of the several traps Brent had set out - baited with delicious peanut butter.

"I even put out a bowl with a few scraps of chicken and water in it," he said, "I figured if it was a mouse it'd try to haul away the bits of chicken, fall into the water and drown, but nothing there either."

We then tried to implicate a raccoon, but again we both agreed that by the time a raccoon got through with his kitchen the place would have been in shambles. In past escapades with raccoons, I had seen them open doors on refrigerators, dragging the contents out on the floor, and even teach German shepherds to climb trees while stealing food out of the dog's dish.

With raccoons out of the way, the possibility of a stray cat entered our thoughts, but providing a way for a cat to get into the house without Brent or Kara seeing it was out of the question.

"How about a spotted skunk?" I suggested.

"Yeah, could be," Brent agreed. "I had one of them in my house a few years back - but you'd think I'd smell him, you think?"

"I doubt it," I replied, then told him about the spotted skunk that lived with Sue and I in our home on the edge of the Huachuca Mountains when we were running Ramsey Canyon Preserve in Southeast Arizona. The skunk and I would often confront one another in the middle of the night when it was mouse-hunting and I was headed for the bathroom. All it did was stomp its front feet to let me know I was in the way, and we were both polite to each other, resulting in no change to the house's inside atmosphere.

Then Kara piped up, "Why don't you put some flour on the floor and see what kind of tracks your kitchen prowler leaves behind?"

We all agreed that would be a darn good idea, but Brent said, "I'm going to put up my GoPro camera tonight and then we'll have an image of the culprit."

Brent did just that, and the next day he called me, happy as a coyote in a hen house, exclaiming, "I got him; I got him!"

"What was it?" I asked.

"Won't tell you," he laughed. "If you're going home Kara and I are coming over with the movie I made of him."

Which they did.

If you want to see who's been prowling around in Brent's kitchen visit www.nuggetnews.com, and laugh along with Kara, Sue, Brent and I as we watched the antics of his night visitor (scroll to bottom of home page)..

Oh, yes, he did capture the creature in a live trap the next night and took it somewhere in Sisters Country and liberated it - but he won't tell me where. I hope it wasn't in my backyard.