There seem to be a lot of critters at school lately, and since I get there so early, and since it’s light out so early, I get to see them before all the people scare them away.
Pulling into my parking slot yesterday, I noticed lots of fresh dirt on the hill next to the lot. I went over to investigate. It was a giant animal hole. A co-worker said she saw a groundhog at school yesterday. Are they really that big? I thought they were smallish. The hole looks big enough that I could wriggle inside it.
The front door of the Middle School building currently has a swallow nest above it. The mommy sits on the nest, and the daddy stands guard on the railing nearby.
The male is on the railing to the left in the picture above. Here’s a closer view:
As I walk into the school building each day, the swallows fly away, then come back to swoop threateningly at my head. I don’t know how they handle all the foot traffic during the school day. Good thing summer is almost here…
*gulp* That critter hole creeps me out a little. No, a lot. It creeps me out a lot.
That male swallow looks like a doorman in a tux. Too bad he’s not friendly – he won’t get as many tips.
Are a ground hog and a prairie dog the same thing? (To the internet!)
And I love that Watch-guard Daddy swallow. He looks like a bouncer to me, what with his big chest and all.
No. They are not the same thing. Prairie dogs are smaller and live in the great plains states. Groundhogs (also called marmots, Maryland marmots in fact is a common name) are bigger. Prairie dogs live in whole whole communities of prairie dogs and other animals – they even share their burrows wtih owls, snakes and ferrets. Groundhogs only live with their immediate families – they’re apparently a bit snobbish in the eyes of prairie dog lovers.
Also, that groundhog tunnel probably goes many feet straight down, then it makes a u-turn up again to a little room where they live.
Whew. That’s more than you wanted to know, isn’t it?
Thanks for the info. It sent me to the internet to see pictures. I stumbled across a story of someone whose house was being damaged by groundhogs and how he got rid of them. He is a hunter and is not ashamed to kill small animals that others might think are cute. The article is hilarious! I laughed out loud several times. My favorite sentence in the article:
Ha! “Executed”! I’m going to start using that word when talking about rabbits.
But I must warn you that there are pictures of a dead groundhog with a big gunshot wound. Don’t click the link if that will freak you out.
http://www.orchardphoto.com/GroundhogFever.html
For the groundhog entrance, it looks like 2 holes divided by a little dirt hill…..could it be a dual complex down there? Like Laverne & Shirley live on one side and Lenny & Squiggy on the other.
I think groundhogs are also known as woodchucks & they are not small. But they are neighborly BRAD!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R4oH8IWoKo&feature=related
So that IS a swallow! Each time I’d have to leave through those green doors today I felt badly disturbing that beautiful bird sitting so quietly on his railing. I figured there was a nest nearby, but I couldn’t tell where by his departing flight. I think he’s gorgeous and I spent more than a few seconds appreciating him from inside the building by looking through the glass inserts in those end doors.
He’s MUCH friendlier than the grackle/starling/crows that hang in the mulberry bush in the backyard at home. Heck, any time the cat, dog, or us humans try to rest peacefully in our own yard we get a verbal scolding from the avian chorus above…and it’s hardly angelic. “We don’t care about your old nest and don’t even know wher eit is, so leave us alone!”
Maybe the groundhog we’d had in our backyard several summers ago wound up in Towson somehow. We only saw him for a few months, then poof (or shall I say, “executed”?).