Earthquakes in the east! Hurricanes to the south! Groundhogs in the backyard!
We have a groundhog. Or woodchuck: your preference. Woodhog? I can’t propose “ground-chuck” as a compromise. At any rate, groundhogs are woodchucks, and neither one is a chipmunk.
So, Gary spotted a groundhog / woodchuck in the backyard. As he later emailed:
“I ran and got my camera and took two pictures of the wood-chuck so that we can determine if it really is a wood-chuck. It was really fast so I got one picture of it looking at me and then another when it was just about to the fence. At first, I thought that it was a small bear or a porcupine but then it raised its head.”
Sadly, that isn’t Gary’s photo. Look at the indignant stance! “I said good DAY, sir.”
Here is our fat undignified woodchuck. He has no drama.
The other shot Gary took is just a butt and the bottom of our fence. Evidently our groundhog directs his energy into running away, not histrionics.
12 responses to “You Aint Nothing But A Groundhog”
I have a weakness for groundhogs. Not as a dish, but as local wildlife. My neighbor has one living under her garden shed and (so far) hasn’t killed it.
Oh – my step-father, from Deliverance, VA, used to call them “whistle pigs.”
We have one living in our back yard too. I have dubbed him/her “Sausage”. We also had a snake on the front porch, a bat on the Enclosed back porch, a lizard living in the garage and several rabbits. I feel very countrified this summer.
Aw, they’re so cute. The guys in the office area always complaining about how destructive they are though. Something about burrows and collapsing ground… I don’t own a home so I call them cute.
Yes, Sausage is causing some problems in the yard. We have discussed live trapping and re-homing somewhere out in the sticks.
You people are so lucky to have animals. All we’ve got here, native, are birds, which are fine but they’re not cute like furry mammals.
Did you ever see then one near the shuttle stop? You have groundhogs at home and work! Unless the one from work caught a ride home with you. Hmmmm…
Earlier this year there seems to have been a groundhog population explosion in NJ. I snapped a picture of my neighbor’s yard with 12 (!) of them hanging around, sunning themselves. One of my friends lost a lot of garden plants to a groundhog in June, and there was about a week at work when I couldn’t look out the window without seeing one.
It was weird.
Becs – yes, I’ve read they whistle when threatened! I hope they get bold enough for me to threaten one. Zayrina- I just love the yard ecosystem. For the first few years we had rabbits in warrens under the house, then about five years back there were oppossums in the same warren, and now I suppose we’re living on top of the same warren occupied by groundhogs. Amy in StL – And I was blaming moles and voles for the pits in the yard!Zayrina- are they territorial like squirrels? Because they’d just come back.Big Dot – How sad. But then again, fleas. No mammals, no fleas.Caroline – Thats what that was? I decided it was a badger!Tami – they were getting out of the tectonic plate, obviously.
“Because they’d just come back.”
I think I will bring him to St. Louis when I visit in September. Too far to come back.
Zayrina – Oh, no, not for a mammal. Dogs travel cross country to get home,for example.
Zayrina, drop him off here–I miss having groundhogs around the place. Queenie, yours is very cute even if undramatic.
Jammies – He’s left very dramatic holes in the yard.