If it looks like a squirrel, what the heck do you think it is? A duck?

Today's question:

Do you have an idea what type of animal would dig a good sized hole in my back yard? There is no grass, just crushed granite. My yard man thinks it could be squirrels. I have seen one so far, and it has eaten up the Indian corn decoration on the side of my house.

I don't mean to be snarky here. I really don't, so please don't write in and tell me I was mean to this lady, who no doubt is a very nice person.

But let's face facts here.

There is a hole in the yard.

The yard man thinks it could be squirrels.

The lady has seen a squirrel in the yard and her Indian corn is gone.

So call me a dreamer, but I'm just kind of going out on a limb here and guess that it's a squirrel.

The real question here is just what kind of squirrel it might be.

Here in the Valley we have basically three choices — the Harris antelope squirrel, round-tailed ground squirrel and the rock squirrel.

An antelope squirrel looks a lot like the chipmunks you might see at higher elevations.

It has a white belly, a bushy tail and a white stripe on its side.

A round-tailed ground squirrel looks like a small prairie dog, which it isn't.

A few years ago I wrote that we don't have prairie dogs in the Valley.

And I got a lot of grief from people who had actually seen ground squirrels, which live in colonies like prairie dogs.

Rock squirrels look a bit like tree squirrels, but live in the ground.

They are sort of grayish with long, bushy tails.