on one of their walks

the other day Tim and Ronan went for a walk. ever since our kids were tiny babies, Tim will take them (usually Ronan) for a bit of a wander across the way, over by the lake, or around the yard. when they were wandering the yard the other day they found something, quite sad, but it was fascinating to Ronan to be close enough to see it. he came running in the house shouting for me and wanted me to see. a baby rabbit was dead in the yard.

we went out there and Tim was looking at it, not wanting to touch it so he had a piece of cardboard and he was moving it with that. I'm not sure how it died. I'm kind of guessing it might have had something to do with not having been fully cared for when the mama was there... I'll explain my theory in a moment
knowing that there must be a nest near by I looked. it was right in front of our faces! look at this. I had mowed the lawn the other day and the babies were still so well hidden we almost didn't see it right in front of our faces.

if not for the little tufts of fur peeking out of the grass clippings I may not have found it at all.

so I reached down just to nudge the cover enough to peek inside and I was a bit startled when it jumped to meet my hand! oh, yay, live babies!
now that very morning I had been expressing my annoyance over those darned rabbits that eat my flowers, but when it's tiny babies, all I can say is "awwwwwwww"

knowing enough about wild rabbits and their nesting habbits (we've had many many many rabbit nests in the yard... much more than we even were aware of) we decided to cover them up and give them a little bit more shelter and test if the mother would be back. we made a ring around the nest with grass clippings and we evacuated the area. mother rabbits will not come to the nest in the day time so all we could do was wait and check them the next day.

I went out yesterday afternoon and looked for the nest spot. looking for the ring of grass, I found no ring of grass, but there was a bigger mound of grass on the nest. that made us so happy to know that she had been back and took good care of them.

now in about two more weeks I'll be so annoyed at those baby bunnies eating my flowers... but for now, look at those beautiful little ears! they've got me cooing and squealing in a high enough pitch that only dogs can hear me.



you're wondering why I think the one baby died from "neglect" well, this is why. a mother rabbit will only feed her babies twice a day / or I suppose I should say night. she comes to feed them and help them (tmi) urinate once right after dusk and once right before dawn. this is enough to get them through the day while she is gone so as not to draw attention to the nest.

we do have evidence that she's been back to care for them. that's good. now consider, these babies are getting bigger and do a better job crowding each other. I think the one that died was just crowded out too many times and though she may have been fed she may not have been aided in evacuation and that is fatal for baby rabbits :(

the other day when the nest was discovered Tim and Ronan peeked in to see how many they could see and they figured there were 3 more maybe 4. this morning, I count 6 heads and there might have been more underneath them!