I Need to Reevaluate my Opinion of Wild Rabbits

 "Charlotte! You gotta see this!"That's what I said when I opened the gate to our backyard. 

We had just gotten home. Char was in the garage getting her stuff in our car. when I was about to turn and get the mower when I spotted the rabbits. There looked to be about five or six, but it was hard to count them because they were moving so fast. But they weren't jumping from me. Instead, they were chasing each other around our tree. I watched them run three laps as Charlotte stood by me with her hand over her open mouth.

"Oh my God," Char exclaimed, "This is the cutest thing I have ever seen!" 

The rabbits stoped circling the tree and split into three different, but intertwining, paths. I could count them now. There were three rabbits weaving, leaping, and hopping around a fourth, stationary rabbit who had its head down in the grass. More than once I watched a rabbit sprint at, and them leap over the stationary one. 

"Let's get closer," Charlotte requested. 

We did.

The three stopped their games and eyed me warily. I was sure they would evacuate, but they didn't leave. They instead zipped around from a safe distance. I pulled out my phone to capture some video while Char tried to feed the stationary rabbit some grass.

Then we spotted the baby bunnies. I appreciate that Char's first reaction was to protect them, "You can't mow!"

I suppose someone smarter than me would have figured out that the stationary rabbit wasn't just eating grass. She was a mom tending to her newborn babies. I have to hand it to momma rabbit. Char had to get really close before she backed away from her nest. Mom didn't go very far, though. She stayed in the yard, and when Char and I backed up, she returned to her little ones.

Not wanting to intrude further, Char and I backed up the hill and closed the gate. Char was right. I couldn't mow now. We went inside. I took Ellie for a walk, and thought about what we had witnessed. 

I wonder if we had interrupted a celebration? Maybe the smaller rabbits were brothers or sisters of the newborns, and they were expressing their excitement and joy at their siblings' birth? It could be true. And if it is, I need to reevaluate my opinion of wild rabbits. There's a lot more going on there that I knew.

That was last Tuesday. Our backyard was empty of rabbits by Thursday afternoon. I was disappointed, but I did get to mow.