Several times over the past few weeks, I’ve been awoken in the middle of the night by an animal in my front yard grunting and making high-pitched howls.

I transformed my front yard from lawn to native vegetation about 15 years ago. I also made paths so that when I want to go for a run out in the country, I head to my front yard.

I really wanted wildlife in my front yard wilderness, so I hired a consultant, Ruby Redpepper. To evaluate its suitability, she used a cat-like animal native to South Africa that’s an indicator of habitat quality. To my delight, she explained that despite the small size of my yard, it’s so high-quality, a concentrated diversity of wildlife will thrive.

She was right. Over the years I added animals that she suggested. With binoculars in hand, I did a day-long hike hoping to find out what mysterious animal has made a home in my yard.

I was able to get photos of a few animals. I saw several deer. This one lives near my front porch.

I came across a marmot. He lives just outside my bedroom window.

A red-tail hawk has a nest in one of my pine trees. He’s often perched on an old TV antennae on my roof looking for a meal.

I saw a snake near the front curb.

Then I came across the remains of a rabbit. I knew just the person who could identify the predator that got it.

I guessed it was a coyote or fox, but after examining the photo, Ruby Redpepper said a very large and controversial animal did it, but refused to say what.

The remains and the middle-ot-the-night noises were still a mystery, along with why Ruby Redpepper declined to identify the predator. A few days later, I caught a glimpse from the corner of my eye and couldn’t believe what I saw. Searching further, I found evidence I was not imagining things.

This footprint is almost 3 times bigger than mine. Obviously it’s bigfoot. Apparently my front yard wilderness is such terrific habitat a bigfoot was drawn to it. But how did it find my yard?

Several days later, I got my answer when I came across this house less than a mile from mine. I’m guessing the population density got too high and one moved on.

I’d really like to observe my front yard Sasquatch. Like people who put up bird feeders to attract birds, I’m going to put up a Sasquatch feeder by my front window. I’m not sure what Sasquatch eat, but I bet they like fruit. I’ll start with that.