Community Corner

VIDEO: Local Groundhog Ms. G Says Spring's On Its Way

Emerging from her kennel this morning Ms. G, the groundhog from Drumlin Farm, scurried out under the awaiting crowds and clouds. Shadowless, she declared spring is on its way.

Forget , the groundhog most local to Lexington, Ms. G., from Mass Audubon’s Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, has spoken and, according to this veteran prognosticator, springtime is just around the corner.

Emerging from her kennel this morning Ms. G scurried out under the awaiting crowds and clouds. She saw no shadow, her handler declared to cheers from children and parents.

And while this winter has been decidedly springlike, Mass Audubon Naturalist Tia Pinney warns against putting too much stock into Ms. G’s predictions.

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Ms. G has lived at Drumlin Farms since 2003 and has been doing Feb. 2 predictions there since 2004. “We have not been keeping her statistics in those years, because I don’t believe she’s very accurate at all, unfortunately,” said Pinney.

It’s possible that Ms. G’s cushy lifestyle—hand-raised, food freely available and no real hibernation to speak of—could have something to do with her more-miss-than-hit predictions concerning winter, according to Pinney.

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“Woodchucks in the wild in Massachusetts at this point are still hibernating; they won’t be out until the end of Feburary, early March. She doesn’t fully hibernate because she lives indoors,” Pinney said. “The fact that she gets fed everyday and has a pretty cushy life may in fact have something to do with the way she predicts the weather.”

For her part, Pinney isn’t sure we’ve seen the last of Old Man Winter.

“This winter has been the most unusual winter I’ve ever seen here in New England,” she said. “I hate to make a prediction, but I can’t believe we’re done. We haven’t really had winter yet.”


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