groundhog spotting

I started writing this post last week and hadn't yet published it because I thought no one would care to read about my backyard rodent-friend.  But let's be honest, my mom is probably one of the few people that actually reads this blog and she'll like it...so, here we go.  ;)

In mid-May we had some friends from Smithers come for a weekend visit with their toddler.  It was great to see them and discover Rupert through the eyes of a two year old (highlights: boats, ice cream, and Mason).  Their visit also uncovered a north coast neighbour we didn't know existed.

The sunny-ish weather inspired some bbq-ing and open patio doors, which is how our house guests discovered what they first thought was a cat in the neighbor's backyard.  Upon closer inspection, however, the supposed cat turned out to not to be feline at all, but a rather large-sized, plump rodent.

What the hell was it?  Embarrassingly, two of us in the room graduated with degrees in Wildlife Biology, but the best we could muster was that it looked like some sort of marmot.  Good old Google came to the rescue (seriously, what did we do before Google?) and we realized that our new next-door neighbor was indeed a marmot- in fact it was the largest species of marmot, the groundhog (Marmota monax).

This was perplexing.  What the hell was a groundhog (also known as a woodchuck) doing so close to the ocean?  I thought marmots were mountainous creatures?  Even more curious was the fact that this groundhog seemed to have claimed a large pile of scrap wood as his empire. He sat atop it surveying his over-grown-backyard-full-of-junk kingdom.

This wasn't even the weirdest part...after spying on the groundhog for a while, we realized that a cat (a real one this time) was sauntering up behind our newly discovered friend.  Eek! I was certain that the groundhog's demise was imminent.  Alas, after skulking around and then bounding up behind it, the cat's presence appeared to have no effect on the groundhog one bit.  In fact, they appeared to be buddies.  He even let the cat sit on top of his wood pile.

And so, thus started my groundhog fascination.  Since discovering this little buddy (whom Ty has dubbed Sylvester), I did a bit more research into groundhogs.  Turns out, unlike other marmots, they aren't a mountain creature at all, but prefer lowland areas.  Despite the fact that their range map does not show them on the coast of BC, they do indeed live here in Rupert.  They are much more plentiful back east, however, and aren't always the most popular.  They build elaborate dens with mutliple tunnels that can do some damage to fields, parks, and even the foundation of a building.  They are also one of the few mammal species that actually undertakes a true hibernation.  Fascinating, right? (Stop rolling your eyes).  Find out more enthralling (I'm serious now) facts about groundhogs here.

My mother, being the fabulous, creative, quirky person that she is, adapted Edward Lear's Owl and the Pussycat just for me and my new groundhog friend.

"The Woodchuck and the Pussy-cat met for drinks on a sunny, woodland patch.

They’d brought clover so fine and dandelion wine, the last of the homebrew batch.

The Woodchuck looked up at the house afar and whistled a worried tune,

“The landlord is changing, there’ll be rearranging and likely eviction too!”

“Don’t worry ole’ Chucky, ole’ Chucky, ole’ pal.” purred the cat to his rodent friend.

“Stay out of their garden and you’ll get a pardon, and all will be right in the end.”

“Interpretation will be your salvation! There’ll be woodchuck-watch tours for friends.”