Groundhog

I think groundhogs (Marmota monax) are brilliant! If you’re from North America, these things are relatively unremarkable, apart from their alleged weather-predicting abilities (!); not having anything like this back home, they’re rather more impressive to a Brit.

Groundhogs are essentially enormous squirrels (Sciuridae); Europeans will be familiar with their more extreme relations that live up mountains – the marmots. Groundhogs prefer to live in less harsh conditions (although the winter isn’t exactly balmy in Canada)…

This particular individual was part of a pair that live in amongst the big rocks that make up the lake-shore about half a kilometre east of Oakville Harbour.