It has really been a treat in recent weeks to look out my window at all the snow—and the flurry of animal activity taking place out there. We have an abundance of wildlife in our yard in all seasons, but they are more visible in the winter.
The birds are going crazy, zipping from snowy branch to bird feeder and back again. We have a suet feeder hanging right outside our bedroom window and it is visited frequently by a woodpecker and a delightful little bird with a racing stripe down his side. Apologies to my birding friends, I don’t know what species he is, but he sure is cute.
The squirrels in the yard have a super highway of trails—above and below the snow. It is fun to watch them duck into tiny holes in the snow only to appear a few yards away. It drives our poor golden retriever Fearless crazy as he wades through the snow after them.
And then there are the tiny prints on the deck and around my car. What are they? They look like they could be tracks from the squirrel, but they are just a little bit bigger. A fisher perhaps? I haven’t seen one, but it’s exciting to think one is out there.
We see deer of course. They are quite bold and they stroll by our deck peeking in the windows at us. Their tracks are everywhere and if we walk out into the tree line we can see the packed down snow where they have bedded down.
My favorite winter animal is the rabbit—or more properly the snowshoe hare. They also seem to be everywhere, leaving behind their adorable tracks. Their prints are as cute as they are—long feet and a fluffy little tail imprint. With this latest snow, which brought the snowbank to a height even with the steps, there are now rabbit tracks all over the deck. They have been very polite and haven’t left any rabbit droppings so I don’t mind.
In fact, I hope they hang around until my three-year-old granddaughter AnnaBelle gets to see them. She likes rabbits too. She has a pet rabbit. Her five-year-old sister Genevieve named him Quiver, which I think is a perfect rabbit name. Genevieve understands that some rabbits are pets that can come inside to visit people and that others are wild. However, the difference still puzzles AnnaBelle.
It’s probably my fault, because I get so excited about the wild rabbits that hang around our yard. When I see one, I make sure the grandkids see it too. I have called their attention to the all-brown rabbits in the summer and I have laughed with them at the halfbrown, half-white hares in the fall. I’m sure at some point I said, “Oh, look! There’s my rabbit!”
I even “feed” them once in awhile. I toss out potato peelings and carrot tops for them and I’m sure AnnaBelle has been there when I’ve done that.
And once, when she was staying at my house, one of the rabbits was hanging out in the doghouse that Fearless never uses. I may have wondered out loud if the rabbit was living in the doghouse.
So now, AnnaBelle looks for “my rabbit” whenever she visits. When she enters the house, she heads to the patio door and looks outside. “Where is your bunny, Grandma?” she asks.
It’s hard to make her understand that my bunny won’t come and see me when I want him to. She doesn’t understand why he wants to live outside in the snow.
I know she’ll figure it out eventually. But it will always make me smile to think that the shy snowshoe hare leaving imprints in the yard is “my bunny.” What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground.
Henry David Thoreau
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