Groundhog Day

From Wikipedia... "Groundhog day is a tradition observed regionally in the United States and Canada on February 2nd of every year. It derives from the Pennsylvania Dutch superstition that if a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day and sees its shadow, it will retreat to its den and winter will go on for six more weeks. If it does not see its shadow, spring will arrive early:"

In Germany the Badger is the forecasting animal, while in Hungary, the bear serves the same purpose.

Also from Wikipedia... "The groundhog (Marmota monax), also known as the woodchuck, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. A lowland creature of North America it is found through much of the Eastern United States, across Canada, and into Alaska. The groundhog is an extremely intelligent animal forming complex social networks and kinship with its young. It is capable of understanding social behavior, communicating threats through whistling and working cooperatively to accomplish tasks such as burrowing."

"Common names for the groundhog include chuck, wood-shock, groundpig, whistle-pig, whistler, thickwood badger, Canada marmot, monax, moonack, weenusk, red monk and land beaver. French Canadians referred to the animal as siffleux. Young groundhogs may be called chucklings. The name Woodchuck is unrelated to wood or any sense of chucking. It stems from an algonquian name for the animal, wuchak. The similarity between the words has led to the popular tongue twister..."

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

Here in Edmonton today it is -25C, with a cold breeze and about six inches of fresh snow. It is hazy and overcast at the moment, but looks as though we may see a little sun later. There would be a chance of a groundhog seeing its shadow, but as they are intelligent animals, its doubtful that any in these parts will venture out of their burrows.

We had a pair of groundhogs living in our woodpile out in Nordegg. These were a very dark color phase of the animal that is more commonly a lighter brown. Our neighbors named her Shadow. She had a couple of chucklings in the wood pile one year, and then afterwards we didn't see any of them for quite some time. More recently, I've seen one this past year in another of our woodpiles. It is dark in color as well, so perhaps it is Shadow, or one of her offspring. The snapshot below was taken behind our cottage in April of 2021.