Rabbit Diary VII

As the snow continues falling for the past few days, it seems like rabbits have been coming less to our front and back yard. I think it's quite normal for a lot of animals to slow their activity level to a certain point to conserve energy when food is harder to find. Well, it's either that, or I just keep on missing them while they came to visit and have some of those fresh fruit slices and rabbit treats that I put out. Hopefully those extra food that they get from me can boost their chances for the winter, since the extra calorie intake is very important key for survival.

I was afraid that the cold might freeze the tender rabbit paws so I put the food on a foot mat so the rabbits can eat on it and keep its paws warm, but it seemed like I was worrying too much, since they always pulled the fruit slices out of the mat and enjoyed them away from the mat instead of on it. Just another cute story, a couple days ago when snow fell for the first time and the banana was covered by it and I was just thinking the night before that I might have to go out in the morning to "re-reveal" the banana out so the rabbit can see and smell it, but once again, the rabbit proved that I've worried too much by digging the banana up from the snow and finished it without any hesitation!

It just proved that humans indeed complicate things WAY to much, especially when things can be so light and easy!

PS. I know I have posted this picture before, but I just wanted to show you the "mug shot" of Regular. I know it's Regular is because you can see a small tear on its ear.

Rabbit Diary VI

Here's an older video of Regular, the rabbit, that I took during the summer time, I didn't get the chance to put it on earlier, but at least I've found my chance now to get this video on the blog.

Our star in the short video was coming toward me to have the fresh apple slices, although it was still hesitant at that moment, since the "relationship" and trust between us was still kind of new, yet it still came on over. As you can hear me saying "Come on." to the rabbit, it was kind of a strategy of mine to encourage it to have no fear for me.

Just a footnote here on Boldie and I think it was Rookie here, I found out that rabbits do fight for food! But instead of biting, kicking and scratching, they were jumping so high as if they were competing for the Olympic Gold Medal!! It was so cute that I wished I had my camera with me to shoot the action. I guess filming and photography sometimes take luck to get the shots that we want.

Rabbit Diary V

First of all, I have to apologize on the fact that I didn't get a chance to take a new photo on rabbits, since it has been drawing near winter, raining and been cold for the last few days that rabbits didn't come as often as in the summer. So I had to use a scenic picture that I took when I was out walking around and enjoying beauty around me.

Ok, here comes the main topic of the day. As I have written in my previous blog saying that Regular and Boldie might have moved on, right? Well, to my very pleasant surprise, Regular came back this week! I guess the reasons why I didn't get the chance to see Regular were probably because Boldie must have chased Regular away so often that it was afraid to come back, unless Boldie isn't there. Or, I just simply missed them by pure chance and coincidence; they came to our backyard but I was out, I'm back home but they didn't come... such a thing.

Anyway, Regular saw me with fresh apple slices that I prepared for it, it practically "ran-hopped" towards me and took the apple slices from my had and munched and chewed loudly on the apple slices. I guess that rabbits are indeed quite smart and have a good memory on things and people as well. I was and still am glad to see Regular is still alive.

You know, Regular actually took a special place in my heart, mainly because it's the first wild rabbit that I have ever encountered and also the first wild animal who trusted me so much to the extant that it approached me and actually took food from my hand. Of course, then came Boldie, which I also worked hard to earn its trust, also took me by surprise and also being reminded on the fact that even animals have their own personality.

PS. I still haven't seen Boldie for a while, I hope it is still around the neighborhood.

Rabbit Diary IV

I talked to Johnny yesterday and I agreed with him, he said what I'm doing with this blog did have good intentions on sharing knowledge on and about animals, but it seemed like I've lost my main goal: my own experiences and observations on them! Not just hard facts. Well, here's some improvement that I'm hoping to change.

First of all, it's quite self-explanatory, it's about rabbits, or wild hare, obviously it's according to my blog title. Secondly, it's all about changing shifts. What's changing shifts? You might ask me, well, animals tend to go away, move, being challenged for territory and so on, right? Same thing goes with wild rabbits.

I found out Regular and Boldie both might have moved on to another place or some other reason, our new rabbit, which I named "Rookie", came into our lives. The reason why I called the new rabbit Rookie was just because it was a new comer.

The first couple of times when I observed Rookie, I thought it was just like Regular and Boldie, a wild hare, but after a few times, it looked more and more like a mixed breed of tamed home rabbit and a wild rabbit. The physical differences between a wild rabbit and a home rabbit that I have observed so far are the following three points:

1:) Home rabbits are rounder looking while the wild rabbit looks sharper.

2) A home rabbit's eyes are much more gentle while the rabbit's eyes seemed to always be on alert and cautious.

3) Home rabbit's fur are usually solid block colors, such as white, gray, light brown, black & white and so on, while a wild rabbit has earthy brown color for base color with black wisps on the top which matches the dirt and the environment for camouflage.

Now you have gotten some idea between a wild rabbit and a home rabbit, now I can describe Rookie. Rookie's fur seemed to have a combination of a bit of block based black color of a home rabbit and a dirty brown based color with black wisps of a wild rabbit; its body, or at least its face seemed rounder than a pure bred wild hare; but one thing that Rookie still has as a wild rabbit are its eyes and its sense of alertness of humans.