The Bunnies We Know

 We have been enjoying the Japanese Youtube channel KOGARANA's Bunny Popo . Great videos include: Bunny cuisine , Japanese style, is very impressive (or, because it's dumplings, is it also Chinese?) Birthday bunny wants more sweets , won't stop ringing bell It's a challenge to get Popo into the carrier to go get her nails cut . Those leg flicks at about 1:15 are the strongest words on the rabbit language (and perhaps evidence in favor of Chomsky's argument that language is innate , not taught) Popo and her cat friend Pete are lovely together A bunny and her slide  

Here are some of the rabbit videos we have enjoyed.  TheDodo channel features heartwarming videos about animals. Here is a delightful one about a rabbit:  Lady Rescues A Newborn Rabbit And Raises Her Until She's Ready To Be Wild The channel OneMorePlease features two rabbits that are extremely smart but the owners are not always nice. The videos we like include: Sleeping rabbit wakes up at the sound of a banana which shows how expressive rabbits can be without speaking -- using their body language and their eyes and ears to express themselves Is a RABBIT as smart as a DOG? -- in which the rabbit, Pigpoke, demonstrates intelligence not so much by solving a dog intelligence toy but by reading and understanding nonverbal cues from the human The channel  Jabba The Rabbit features a large female rabbit called Jabba and her small male companion called Solo. They are very cute together, as in  Giant Rabbit vs. Lop “Love Dance” in Our Living Room! (Bunny Love Behaviors...

In January we had heavy snow falls and frigid weather. Snow in our backyard measured at least 18” in height. So, I confined my shoveling to sidewalks and paths to our doors. Despite the lack of a path through our yard, it didn’t stop one intrepid rabbit. It traversed the yard. The average weight of a cottontail is 2.5 pounds. The jumping bunny sunk into powdery snow. Cottontail shoulder height is about 7” to 9”. The rabbit had to leap high to clear the snow. That height didn’t enable it to hop far horizontally. A deep, closely spaced line of tracks was created. That night, I photographed the trail. A few days later, after another snowfall, a new set of tracks appeared in the expanse of snow. Rabbit tracks in deep snow Traces of rabbits are erased by layers of flakes. Sometimes we obliterate the imprints with boots and shovels. Cold bright sunshine slowly evaporates the snow, softening the edges of paw prints. But, after a few weeks, the deep tracks are still visible as the thick layer ...

Are you aware that rabbits express happiness by hopping for joy? Those jumps are called “binkies”. Rabbits of all species leap into the air, kick out their legs as they twist their bodies to land in slightly curved positions. Food could trigger a binky. Meeting and playing with other rabbits could cause binkies. One day curved binky tracks appeared in our yard. The next day a neighbor told me that she had similar tracks and that it looked like rabbits were partying. I wish that Alex and I could have witnessed that. M Binky tracks

Rabbits didn’t visit during the first few weeks of snow. Our neighborhood Eastern Cottontails no longer appeared mid-day like they did this past spring, summer and fall. During the summer, neighbors stated that seeing the critters at 2pm was new behavior. In our new neighborhood, they frolicked, foraged and relaxed in shady spots all day.  Now the bunnies are true to their nature – crepuscular - meaning they’re active after sunset and before dusk. In November we saw a rabbit a couple of times at twilight and once past midnight. Rabbit tracks After December snowfalls, rabbit tracks occasionally appeared in our yard. Usually there was a single set of tracks in various places. As the cold month progressed, more and more tracks appeared, not daily, but frequently. We didn’t know if a single bunny visited multiple times or if there were multiple creatures. As evidenced by their tracks, they began to explore our front lawn. A couple of times in January we spotted two rabbits on our prope...

 This morning, woke up earlier than expected, looked outside in the back, and saw a bunny. It did not run away but remained way. I spoke softly to it. Yesterday, Melissa had noted some rabbit droppings -- the rabbit had marked its territory -- so I was not surprised to see it.