Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson LVI · Topic 6: Mammal study
56. The woodchuck or ground-hog
Goal: Your child can describe the woodchuck's burrow, food and watchful habits, and explain how it spends the winter.
You'll need
- Binoculars
- A field edge, pasture, roadside bank or park lawn with woodchuck holes
- Nature notebook
What's in the book
The leading thought (it has thrived despite the farmer; it lives in a burrow, eats plants and hibernates), the method (pupils watch a woodchuck and its den for weeks or months) and twelve questions on where it lives and feeds, fighting and enemies, its noises (play a mouth-organ near the burrow), how the burrow is dug and arranged, paths and back doors, size, color and fur, feet and tail, ears, teeth and eyes, winter and Candlemas Day, spring, and the young. A passage from Thoreau about chasing a woodchuck follows.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Spring through early fall. Woodchucks feed in early morning and late afternoon on lawns, field edges, highway banks and gardens, and sit up near their holes to watch. They hibernate from late fall to late winter or early spring.
Safety: never touch, feed or corner a wild mammal, and never handle a dead one. Wild animals can bite and can carry rabies and other diseases. Watch from a distance with binoculars. Don't put a hand or foot into a burrow, and watch out for holes when walking in fields.
Keep the big idea in mind
Read this to yourself:
The woodchuck has thriven with civilization, notwithstanding the farmer's dog, gun, traps and poison. It makes its nest in a burrow in the earth and lives upon vegetation; it hibernates in winter.
Comstock's method is to watch one woodchuck and its den for weeks. Pick a burrow you can see from a car, a path or a window.
Watch it feed
Where is the woodchuck found? On what does it live? At what time of day does it feed? How does it act when startled?
Where is the woodchuck likely to station itself when it sits up to look for intruders?
The burrow
How does the woodchuck make its burrow? Where is it likely to be situated? Where is the earth placed which is taken from the burrow?
Are there likely to be one or more back doors to the burrow? What for?
Look for the big main hole with a dirt pile, and a hidden back door without one.
Sounds
What noises does the woodchuck make and what do they mean?
Comstock suggests playing a "mouth-organ" (harmonica) near the burrow to see if the woodchuck likes music. You can try it from a respectful distance.
Winter and Groundhog Day
How does the woodchuck prepare for winter? Where and how does it pass the winter? Did you ever know a woodchuck to come out on Candlemas Day to look for its shadow?
Candlemas Day is February 2, Groundhog Day. Talk about the story and the facts: in the North most woodchucks are still asleep then.
Put it into words
Ask your child how a woodchuck stays safe and gets through the winter. Then share the leading thought.
Nature notebook
Draw the woodchuck sitting up beside its burrow, with the dirt pile. Make a little cutaway drawing of how you think the tunnels go.
Afterwards
Check the same burrow once a week. Note the last date you see the woodchuck in fall and the first in spring.
Tip
Comstock's question 11 asks children to compare how the woodchuck looks in fall and in spring. Fat in fall, thin in spring: that is the stored food it lived on all winter.