Groundhog

A year ago I sent sibling email saying

I had had no idea that groundhogs climbed trees. In fact I believe this to be a juvenile groundhog, much smaller than the one that waddles around all year though its body is still more than a foot long plus tail, and there were two of them in two different small trees around the den at the base of our yard and the other one startled me -- and Rosie -- considerably by zooming down the tree and safe into the hole as we trotted by. But this one stayed put while I took a fair number of really bad pictures and a few only moderately bad pictures, of which this is, umm, of which this is one. Note tail color. Did you know groundhogs climbed trees?

So brother Phil, who had left the picture in his email for a year, has posted it at the UMich AnimalDiversity web site:

Date Taken: June 7, 2009

Location: Hamilton, New York

Caption: groundhog in tree

Contributors: Dr. Tom Myers (photographer, copyright holder)

This is mildly amusing, and interesting in a this-is-how-Web-content-happens sort of way. My daughter comments "Daddy, it's a groundhog in a tree. Why do you want a copyright for that?" Well, it's a creative commons copyright, and I approve of them. Besides, Phil suggested it. Hmm....