It’s rabbit season at The University of Chicago, and the lagomorphs graze on the lawn early in the morning when I come to work. I encountered two of them today, and managed to get my camera out for a few photos and a (shaky) movie. The rabbits were frozen, so I had to approach them to get them to move.
A photo:
The movie is shaky because I was excited and trying to approach them. The white tail comes up at 20 seconds in. Still, it’s nice to see a bit of wildlife on the way to work:
Bunnies!
Clearly, they recognize a threat to Tepoztecatl when they see it.
Hello?! You said hello in a normal man voice? That’s no way to talk to rabbits. Sheesh.
Rabbits hate being condescended to. But in the case of giant apes, it might make them feel better.
You forgot the first rule of rabbit-stalking: Be vewy, vewy quiet!
Seems like only last week it was duck season.
You’re thinking of the week before last. Last week was fiddler crab season.
All the frozen rabbits I’ve ever seen were skinless.
No wonder they were cold!
At 4.23am you posted a movie that you took while walking into work this morning. Wow. Is the clock on WEIT set to something other than central or do you have insomnia?
WordPress headquarters are in California.
Mmm Rabbits … pests, pets and pies!
Perhaps they’re afraid that Dr. Coyne is an agent of the Black Rabbit of Inlé.
!!
It’s bad news when the Black Rabbit has to subcontract out collections.
In this neighborhood, the bunnies are almost as common as squirrels. There are some living in my back yard. (Peoria, IL)
I love watching my bunnies who graze in my yard every morning and evening! I can’t let my kittehs out for the day until I know the bunnies have gone safely back to their lairs in the neighboring pasture. It would be horrifying to find bunny remains on the lawn if the cats decided they looked like fun prey.
Sure, they’re cute but we can learn a lesson from the not so cute problems they have brought to the University of Victoria on Vancouver Island.
That’s odd – over here when rabbits “freeze”, they’re generally hunched down with their ears flattened, not up on their haunches like this.
For sure Ceiling Cat knows, but a rabbit can make a pretty good hole in a cat, if it gets to turn round. Nice big incisors in the cat’s throat, bite and hold ; then put those back legs to work and start DIGGING.
Our puddy-tat, Jackie, learned that lesson at about 14 years age : when successfully stalking baby bunnies, be VERY aware of where the doe is ! (Jackie reported in to Ceiling Cat years later, but she definitely had learned that lesson.
Looks delicious.
The grass, I mean.
But what if one of those bunnies dies and ends up in the Pre-Cambrian layer?
That would leave evolutionary biologists unemployed!
Actually they look like young hares (UK) or jack rabbits (Canada) . Their gait definitely suggests this – but I could be wrong – often am at my age.
Let’s not split hares….
(I know, it’s a really coney joke….)
Be Careful, Professor:
That’s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on! Look, that rabbit’s got a vicious streak a mile wide! It’s aKiller! He’s got huge, sharp, er, he can leap about! Look at the Bones!
I think those rabbits were getting ready to bump uglies, which would explain why they kept looking at you like, “Privacy, please?”
At my workplace there is a fenced in area outside the kitchen window with gravel. This had become overgrown with weeds and gave us a very unsightly vista. So I took it upon myself to start going in early. I weeded the area, built a rectangular raised bed and sewed several packets of “mixed flowers” which were very cheap. The mixed flowers are pretty disappointing as most of the plants that came up don’t actually have flowers on them. The area has now been invaded by several baby bunnies who are now happily munching their way through the mixed flowers. I will be deploying some wire mesh before next year’s efforts.
Well, that’s rude. The bunnies, in their infinite wisdom, know that you dislike the mixed flowers and helping to repair the damage by engaging in a campaign to wipe them from existence. And you’re talking about caging them!
This is why bunnies don’t volunteer to take care of more of our problems.
The wire mesh would be to keep them out not in.
I always check my posts carefully for bad spelling and the word sewed was bugging me when I posted it. At the time I was thinking I’m sure that’s the way you spell it but it just didn’t seem right. Of course, you sew two pieces of fabric together, you sow seeds. Since my user name is from the Parable of the Sower and not the Sewer, you would have thought that the penny would have dropped.
I expect to see a follow-up video from you that is somewhat similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbonpW_SMhU
What species are they? Latin binomial please!
Is there a “law” in mammalian (or general) zoology like “if typ. ratio of eye surface area to brain radius/area/volume is greater than K, then species is nocturnal”?
Jerry, I don’t know how to contact you, so I’m passing on this must distribute cat cartoon, hoping that you read this….
http://tompreston.deviantart.com/art/SYAC-No-Work-For-You-201890563