Gilbert the groundhog

One day shortly after we moved into the new house, I noticed movement in a corner of the backyard and realized we shared our new home with a very large groundhog. When I say large, what I mean is that my first thought when I saw him was “why is there a full grown beaver in our yard?” We’d estimate he weighs 30 lbs, easy.

‘Gilbert’ (we are assuming male groundhogs get bigger than females but we’re just guessing and I suppose it could just as easily be a Gilda) tends to come out in the afternoons and disappears the minute he spots us. I snapped these pictures peeking around the corner of the house but he was too far away to really see; the few times we’ve gotten a better look at him, from the kitchen window, we could see he’s actually very grey in the face so we think he’s pretty old. He must be pretty wily to have managed to stay alive so long. We’ll have to take Gilbert into account when we fence in the backyard and make sure that he is safe from the dogs.