Mary's Monday Metazoan: in our backyard

This is not a very good picture, but it's because the subject is very, very shy. We have a, shall we say, rather untamed yard, very weedy, and we keep finding new little pals moving in. We've got rabbits everywhere, and lately, to our annoyance, pocket gophers are burrowing in our front yard, and we've been reluctant to murder them despite the gopher mounds. And this week, this guy moved in to a nice spot under our deck. He or she is good sized, almost knee-high as he stands like that, and he's out rummaging around in the yard fairly often, although he scurries back to his nest as soon as he spots us.

I have named our woodchuck Yuri.

I half-expect to wake up some morning and find a herd of bison has taken residence, which will be very nice…but when the wolf pack moves in, we may have to move.