Happy Groundhog Day!

February 2nd is the day when we wait for the groundhog to come out of his burrow and, if he sees his shadow, we have another 6 weeks of winter. The theory is he is frightened back into his burrow by the stranger.

Note: Two years ago, I made this post about Groundhog Day which I have updated for 2021.

Yes, we all know that it's NOT scientific! When the winter is long, you invent things to break up the monotony. The tradition comes from the German Badger Day, also celebrated on February 2nd. German immigrants brought the tradition when they came to North America, and we seem to have a growing number of prognosticating groundhogs, also called woodchucks and whistle pigs. Punzsutawney Phil is probably the best known groundhog. The groundhogs in Punzsutawney, Pennsylvania have been making weather predictions since 1887! In Canada, the most famous is Wiarton Willie, the albino groundhog from Wiarton, Ontario, but we have a contender from Halifax, Shubenacadie Sam. Not only was he the first to make a prediction today, but he did it virtually from the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park website. Willie chimed in from Twitter.

Groundhog day has been a recurring theme for populations in Covid-19 lockdown because every. day. is. the. same. It's a reference to the Bill Murray move of the same name.

The prognosis this year; Willie, Phil and Sam DID NOT see their shadows today, predicting an early end to winter this year. Yay! We will wait for the other groundhogs to weigh in and, believe it or not, it will be on the news tonight.

Hints of another Scandal?

Suspiciously, Willie did not appear on video this morning. They tossed a white fur hat in the air instead --- what? Not ANOTHER groundhog scandal! We will keep our fingers crossed that Willie is still alive.

The first Wiarton Willie lived 22 years, much longer than the 4-9 years that groundhogs live in the wild. Still, in 1999, it caught the Groundhog Festival organizers by surprise when they went to wake him and he was dead. Too late to find a replacement (where do you find an albino groundhog?), they decided to hold a funeral and substituted a stuffed groundhog for Old Willie. Oh the scandal! I estimate the current Willie to be around 4 years old. All of the Willies have been albinos.

Above, this groundhog appears occasionally in my backyard and raised a litter of babies. I'm still waiting for her to introduce himself.

Images

First photo is from Pixabay. Last photo from the iPad of @kansuze.

Happy Groundhog Day!
@kansuze