For a couple of years, I've had a woodchuck living in my back yard. I enjoyed seeing a small furry rodent go about his business. Now and again we would startle each other, but generally I saw our relationship as one of respect, tinged with the desire to avoid any close encounters.

This spring the woodchuck decided to enlarge his burrow and made a large pile of dirt around the opening in my yard, sort of like a catcher's mound. The manager of my condo must have decided this was going too far, because a Havahart trap appeared on the mound, baited with lettuce. The trap stayed over the burrow for a couple of weeks and then went away. I don't know whether my woodchuck was trapped and moved, or decided to move away on his own; it had other entrances to its burrow on the other side of the condo fence so it could leave any time. I thought I would be without a backyard rodent after that.

But one day I saw another woodchuck, much larger and darker than my original woodchuck, come out of the burrow. The condo manager must have seen him too, because the next day the dirt mound had been shoveled into the burrow to block it up.

This week, however, somebody, probably the big woodchuck, re-excavated the hole. I haven't seen him around, but it looks like he's moved in.

The Duchezz scores this as Humans 1, Woodchucks 1, so far. Keep tuned for all the excitement!



You have to look closely at the middle of the picture to see my original woodchuck.





The evil Havahart live animal trap. Did my woodchuck go to jail?