Beautiful and I walked to the secret garden in the cool of the evening. We were perhaps six or seven yards from the edge of the garden when a rabbit burst forth and ran behind the neighbor's barn. "She's eating our bulbs," BBBH remarked.
But then as we stepped into the fringes around the plantings, we saw these bunnies. We stood about five feet from them, oohing and aahing. The one farthest from the camera couldn't take it, so it ran off into the grass under the windmill. When we took another step closer, a second one ran, but at first it ran toward us. Then it realized that that was not the right direction and turned away.
The other two remained still, supposing that maybe we couldn't see them if they didn't move. But finally when BBBH slowly crept toward them, cooing and talking to them, they, too, decided that they had someplace else to be.
Mama Rabbit seemed to have instincts for self-preservation stronger than the proverbial mother's instinct to protect her offspring. I have had birds attack me when I approached their nests. So "flight or fight" proclivities differ from creature to creature. In the case of the birds, they used both.
I nearly allowed myself to be sidetracked here with a rehash of Jimmy Carter's rabbit tale. But that's 35 years old, and has been done to death.
7 comments:
It's hard to believe those cute little rascals can be so destructive in the garden. In Colorado the Red Fox took care of them, as well squirrels that weren't fast climbers. But we still had the deer to eat our plants.
Those babies are captivating! I do hope they find another place to eat, though~
Vee, until last summer, we had Cookie to keep the yard free of small critters. Oh, well. They roam at will now.
Shelly, they are cute; and even grown rabbits are cute. But very competitive with humans when it comes to the garden.
You can always fence in the garden, I guess.
They sure are cute little guys. We have some rabbits across the street that are fun to watch. That is Hobbes' favorite past time. He doesn't chase them--too much effort, apparently.
Lin, no fence. We'll coexist with the rabbits. That Hobbes. Such a regal life; he lives to be entertained, not to serve.
Snacks on the hoof.
Give them the run of the garden until they get a bit bigger. More meat that way...and, when properly prepared, they taste WAY better than carrots and lettuce anyway.
Sailorcurt, when we were kids, dad raised rabbits for meat and mom knew how to make them taste better than carrots and lettuce!
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