I’ve told rabbit stories on this blog a number of times. In fact, my very first post featured a rabbit nest and a tragedy involving a young hawk. In 2012, I devoted several posts to a nest that eventually fell prey to a mysterious attack during the night. To follow the story, see these posts:
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been following a new rabbit nest in the yard, and I’m beginning to doubt the story I constructed in 2012.
May 8
When I first found the new nest, freshly dug during the first week of May, it was empty. But a few days later, tufts of hair led me to investigate again.
May 8
This time there were babies! Thinly haired, eyes-closed babies that couldn’t have been more than three or four days old. Resisting the temptation to run for my camera, I tucked the grassy cover back into place and vowed to avoid disturbing the rabbits again. But then I found the grass displaced, two days later, and feared another predator had visited. Since I was checking anyway…
May 10
I didn’t want to wake them, so I didn’t get an accurate count. There were three bunnies at least. Maybe four. Maybe more? At any rate, apparently healthy baby rabbits sleeping comfortably in their hair-lined nest.
The mother rabbit visited every evening near sunset, to feed her offspring and clean the nest.
May 10May 10
After each visit, she carefully re-covered the nest.
May 10
Day after day after day…
May 13May 17May 17
Until…
May 18
The scene was eerily similar to what happened in 2012. As before, I found one of the babies hiding on the other side of the yard but couldn’t find the rest.
May 18
And, as before, when the mother rabbit showed up to feed her babies that night, more of the litter came out of hiding.
May 18May 18May 18May 18May 18
The new arrivals raised the count of surviving babies to three. After they nursed, all three began exploring the yard. Two hopped in and out of the corner iris bed while the third ran back and forth along the fence. They popped in and out of sight so often that it became impossible to say exactly how many rabbits were playing in the yard. At least three, but quite possibly more.
May 18May 18
The next night, the rabbits were in the irises and under the deck. They were getting increasingly adept at hiding, and they definitely spent less time nursing when their mother arrived.
May 19May 19May 20
All of this makes me reconsider my assumptions in 2012. What if there was no predator, then or now? What if the babies simply left their nest, scattering hair and dried grass as they emerged? Perhaps, instead of being driven out, this is the rabbit equivalent of fledging.
Not a lot of hummingbirds, yet, but enough to attempt a few photos as they feed in the honeysuckle.
The honeysuckle has bloomed in such profusion that I’ve been blissfully planning a long, bright summer filled with never-ending streams of hummingbirds. I should know better, by now, than to make such plans. The yard is not a blank page, waiting for me to write its future. There are always surprises, always factors I cannot control.
About three days ago, the honeysuckle’s flowers began falling, sometimes before they opened. Many of the blooms appeared to have been cut at the base.
The weather has not been stormy enough to account for such damage, and I can’t find any caterpillars to blame. So I started checking periodically, watching from the kitchen window in hopes of solving the mystery. Yesterday, I caught the thief in action.
This little house finch was not alone. His mate was with him, and a very hungry fledgling.
Unlike hummingbirds, house finches’ beaks are not designed for sipping nectar. So they nipped off the blooms, drank the nectar from the broken end, and left a pile of empty flowers on the ground beneath them.
The house finches have not returned today. Why should they? There’s nothing left to tempt them. But I suspect they’ll remember their feast, when the next wave of honeysuckle grows heavy with nectar…
Last summer the yard had its first nest box success. (See posts about the house wrens here, here, here, and here.)
Now we have a new pair of wrens adding twigs to the nest box.
I’m looking forward to new nestlings in the yard…
But I can’t claim happiness, these last few days. On April 28th tornadoes tore through the place where I grew up, Lincoln County Tennessee. Two people died. In the days before and after Lincoln County’s tragedy, the same storm system ravaged other communities, and there were more deaths. I ache for the families who have lost so much.
I would stop there, if aching helped, but I need to do more. So I’m making a few donations to organizations that are helping families recover and rebuild. Maybe you could consider doing the same?
Rae Spencer 