Looks like a groundhog, but...

I don't think we have groundhogs in California?? There's been a hole near our tangerine tree for quite some time, but it never looked like it was used, so I thought it was just a small sinkhole from god knows what. Maybe 2 inches diameter. Well a few weeks ago, neighbor cat Mister was hanging in our yard looking intently at the ground by the tree, so I went to see what was going on and I saw something dart down that hole! Went so fast I couldn't see it, but I thought it was a rodent. Since then, we've seen one or 2 other holes the same size in random areas of the yard a few feet from the tree.

Today, I saw something sticking its head up by the bird bath! I got the binoculars out, and yep- it's something! It looked like a baby groundhog to me. But a quick search showed that they don't live around here. Or maybe I got it wrong and was looking at the wrong marmot species? It didn't look anything like a mole, or like a yellow-bellied marmot which is the kind that supposedly lives here, and it's not a rat. I tried to take a pic, but it didn't come out too good from the house. And of course when I went outside it burrowed back down and left a pile of dirt. I know BF isn't going to like that one bit. As far as I can tell, it's not eating my garden though (so far. knock on wood!), so what is it?

Oddly enough, I thought it looked like a sea lion with its whiskers, but obviously it couldn't be that. Any ideas?

Gopher? Thirteen-lined ground squirrel (or some other ground squirrel variety. . .but we have the thirteen-lined guys)? Groundhogs are big--bigger than most cats--and their holes are big, too, not a 2-inch diameter. And they aren't very fast---they waddle!

Groundhogs - even baby ones - are pretty big. Our baby was at least 8" long and pretty round when we saw him nibbling on the grass on his own. Their holes are much larger than that. Sounds like maybe a gopher - but 2" in diameter is small for them as well.

I'm not familiar with small rodents. Voles, moles... ummm.... ?????

Yes! I googled gophers, and I think that's definitely it. Thank you! I completely forgot about gophers when racking my brains for little burrowing rodents!

Sigh.. this should be fun to deal with...

Sorry, but a Norway rat (roof rat) seems more likely or a Fruit Rat.

When I still had the cats outside, they took care of those pesky critters - but, they're all inside now and with lemons all over the ground, it's an open invitation to rats.


Norway Rat:
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74106.html

...

IDENTIFYING THE RAT
People do not often see rats, but signs of their presence are easy to detect (see sidebar). In California the most troublesome rats are two introduced species: the roof rat and the Norway rat. It is important to know which species of rat is present in order to place traps or baits in the most effective locations.

Norway Rats. Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus), sometimes called brown or sewer rats, are stocky burrowing rodents that are larger than roof rats. Their burrows are found along building foundations, beneath rubbish or woodpiles, and in moist areas in and around gardens and fields. Nests may be lined with shredded paper, cloth, or other fibrous material. When Norway rats invade buildings, they usually remain in the basement or ground floor. The Norway rat occurs throughout the 48 contiguous United States. Generally it is founds at lower elevations but may occur wherever people live. ...

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There's a lot more information on this website that you may find helpful.

No, we actually had some roof rats in our attic which we finally got rid of in May. And that's what pushed us to get a new roof sooner rather than later (we need a new roof anyway, it's OLD wood shake. Getting it done in August!), because there are just gaps everywhere up there. We have an orange tree next to the house, and they ate the oranges and hung out in the attic. I've seen the rats, I've caught some in a humane trap with orange slices (peanut butter didn't work) and let them go in big fields not near anything a few miles away. I hope they became hawk dinner. No more oranges now, I made sure to get the last of them down with the fruit picker, and the rats are gone too. The tangerines have been gone too for a few months. (I wouldn't mind if they ate some lemons, we've got hundreds!)

What I saw in the hole outside was much different, it looked like a gopher, now that i've googled and see what a gopher actually looks like. It has tiny little ears on the side of its head, not sticking up. I looked up voles, and it didn't look like that either. I wish Mister would've dug and tried to get it instead of stared....

Ground squirrels, prairie dogs and gophers all look like tiny ground hogs.

California has a species of squirrel that lives in burrows and is just amazingly fast. We used to refer to them as "afterburner squirrels." They rarely climb anything taller than a fence post.

Originally Posted by DarkMavis

No, we actually had some roof rats in our attic which we finally got rid of in May. .... I wish Mister would've dug and tried to get it instead of stared....

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You're probably better off - no tellin' what "bugs" the critter might have and you wouldn't want to chance of Mister catching more than just the critter.

This is a thirteen-lined ground squirrel:


I think they're kinda cute but yard people don't think so! We usually call them gophers but real gophers look different. A real gopher's hole is a huge mound of dirt, but the ground squirrels just have a small hole in the ground that's barely noticeable.

But I just looked them up and I guess they don't live in CA! I wonder if there's a similar variety. . .

No, that squirrel thing doesn't look like what I saw. I went out back a bit ago, and it had made a good sized mound of dirt over that little hole! I just scooped up what I could and threw it into the garden. This critter is not going to be very popular around here if it keeps doing THAT!

Check the pictures here

California ground squirrel

Originally Posted by Willowy

This is a thirteen-lined ground squirrel:

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What a beautiful pattern he has! Wish we had his kind around here!

Originally Posted by Arlyn

Check the pictures here

California ground squirrel

Click to expand...

Nope, those look like a squirrel. This didn't. With all the Google searches I did yesterday, I am sure it's a gopher. No more mounds in the yard since I posted last, but when BF got home from work I told him about it, and he said he saw some mounds outside our yard, we have a fence in the back and then on the other side is an easement and then a storm channel. Well on the easement side along our fence there were quite a few large mounds!

Sigh. Again.

Honestly, I'm not big on grass lawns in SoCal. We're in a desert, I hate wasting water to keep the grass green. But BF has different ideas about it, so I'm sure he won't tolerate gopher mounds all over. Of course, if they start killing my veggies or roses, then, well... like my mom said, I'll have to watch Caddyshack and take notes.

If you take a steel rod and push in into the ground near the mound, you will eventually find some of his tunnels. One way to get rid of a gopher is to use poisoned grain. You can get it at the Grange Co-Op usually. Just make sure to not leave any laying around where birds and other wildlife can get to it - put the grain in the tunnel.

There are also spring-loaded gopher traps that you can get. You locate a tunnel, dig into it with a shovel then locate the tunnel on each side of the hole that you have dug. You take and put a trap in each tunnel and then use a garbage can lid or a piece of plywood to cover the hole. Check on the traps about once a day.

The methods where you use smoke or water don't really work because the tunnel system is so large and the ground is porous enough to render those systems ineffective.

Well, I guess the gopher is here to stay, until BF decides to get rid of it...

Here was the crappy pic I took the day I started this thread, you can just see the gopher's head sticking up by the right side in front of the green bird bath (plant saucer).


And then this morning:


And here you can see a bunch of mounds along the fence, the closest one is along our yard, and the others are along neighbors' yards:


Boo. Why can't they dig in the park across the storm channel???

I feel very fortunate. We have a ground hog, and we love watching him graze, dig his tunnels, gather his leaves. Our ground is very "squishy" because of his burrowing near the surface - but we're comfortable letting him be.

I'm sorry your little gopher has taken up residence in your yard. I do hope you'll look for an alternative that doesn't include poisoning him. Such a horrible death.

Yeah, I hope we don't kill the little bugger too. I mean, I even took rats in my car to a field to let them go, and they were in my HOUSE! (well, the attic, not the living space, but they kept me up at night running around!) Like I said, I don't really care about the lawn, just my veggies and flowers, but BF does, so, we'll see what happens, if this keeps up and gets worse. I only saw him that one time though, well 2 times if you count when Mister was staring him down by the tangerine tree. I haven't seen any grazing or running around or anything.

Does it look something like this? These are the Colombian Ground Squirrels that we have up here in Montana.