Rise of the Gopher Tortoise

I have seen more new gopher holes this year than I have ever seen in my life. I don't know if they are just experiencing a real estate boom and all of a sudden they want more holes per gopher, or if there are actual new animals moving in to enjoy life near mown grass. Do they particularly like my yard and my aunt's yard because we are there mowing the lawn for them? Or did the tortoises and the people both pick the same spot for the same unrelated reason — hill tops are the best.

Today I was going to check on things at my aunt's house and take my trash to the dump when I saw a brand new large gopher hole by the chicken yard fence, not 20 feet from another burrow inside the garden under the grape arbor. Both gophers were in their holes, so it wasn't just an extra hole for the one gopher.

Foreground, brand new gopher hole, wasn't there Friday. There's another one
in the center of the photo under the grape arbor.

Here's a zoom shot of the gopher that lives under the grape arbor. View from the new hole. So close!

Of course I stopped and took a picture of it. It's how I do. Then I kept going up the driveway to take my trash to the dumpster. And I saw another new gopher hole under the blueberries. A few weeks ago I saw one just the other side of the driveway there too.

Another new gopher hole under the blueberries.

You can tell these are brand new because the sand is soft and all stomped on looking. As the holes get older the apron of the burrow gets kind of solid looking and smooth.

When I came back from taking the trash I decided to count the gopher holes I could see from the truck. I was wearing shorts so I didn't want to go tromping around in the briars looking for more, so these are strictly ones in direct proximity to our crude variety of civilization. Also I am terrible at counting, so I used my Logger GPS iPhone app.

Total Gopher Holes: 20

Number of holes with leaves in the entrance indicating no use in a week or so: 2

Juvenile holes, smaller than 7" across (by eye): 4

New adult holes: 3

I call this a juvenile hole. It's next to an old burn pile in the middle of the lawn,
which explains the charcoal. 

I don't know how old the juvenile holes are. I think they are all from this year. The juvenile with a hole in my yard has been there over two years. He has had a digging fit this week and has made his much deeper with lots of dark orange dirt on the apron. So these that are still light colored sand, I think they are new.

I didn't see any bitty baby holes at my aunt's house. I have 3 of those over here at my house, under 3" across, as well as 2 juveniles and 10 or more adult. Maybe I'll count them tomorrow.

Here's the plot of gopher holes done on Google Earth. I tilted the scene and rotated it to show surrounding area. Density increases the closer they get to the lawn. Some of these holes are just astonishingly close together. I've never seen them do like this before. There's 12 in under an acre if you ignore the ones up the driveway.

There were always gopher holes along the driveway at the ancestral home when I was a little girl. I don't remember any being in the yard though. And I don't remember any in the yard at my house. But we always had a dog, the big kind that would pick up a baby tortoise in his mouth and slobber all over it and worse. My aunt used to have this kind of dog too. Since she got a Beagle and keeps her tied up the gophers have proliferated.

The last week was a real scorcher too. Do gophers typically get the urge to dig when it's really hot and dry? I know their burrow at the bottom of the hole is usually at the water table so it's nice and damp. I can see digging deeper if the water table drops. But why start over from scratch?! They have excess energy so they just dig another hole just for practice? I don't know, but I'm happy to have them.