I finally have an update.
Firstly, to all the doubters (
), they definitely are rats/mice. One night, one was actually low enough in the tree that I was able to shoot it point blank with a pellet gun. Another time, I was able to shake one out of the tree. Unfortunately my dog was too slow to catch it though. But the last time my dog alerted, I saw at least 3 of them pretty far up in the tree moving all around.
That being said, thanks for all the advice. I set 3 traps up in the tree after reading your comments. A week or so went by and I had caught nothing, so I bought one of those bait stations and taped it up in the tree. Another week or 2 went by and I still saw no activity. But then this morning I finally had one.
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So it was a slow catch, but it eventually worked. I'll keep the traps baited for a while to see if I can catch the rest.
I also like the idea with the spinning coke bottle. My kids will get a kick out of setting that up, and I'll try to set a camera up to catch the footage.
Thanks again everyone!