Hare today gone tomorrow.....

About 3 weeks ago after the first day of snow of a 3-day snowstorm, I looked out to see bunny tracks going across the driveway to the neighbors on the East where Hank sneeks under the garage door and eats the cat food, and then the tracks went down the sidewalk and up the driveway of the neighbors to the West where he liked to take shelter under their covered patio furniture. That was the last evidence I saw that the bunny was still around. Every day at dusk I would go outside and look around and search out the windows whenever I passed them looking for Hank. I had thrown some cabbage in our bushes where we usually saw him every evening and the cabbage went untouched. I figured being a wild rabbit, used to the cold, he was probably staying closer to his nest in order to keep warm, and that he would have no problem out in the weather as would be his cutomary habitat. At least that was what I was hoping.

Saturday I walked a gift over to the neighbors on the West, and Angie asked if I had heard what happened to "our" bunny, (we felt as though it was collectively theirs and ours) to which I replied that I was going to ask if they had seen it lately. Well it seems that the Wednesday after the last Monday when I had seen bunny tracks, when Bob went to take the garbage out, he found Hank frozen to death behind the garbage cans. She was so sad about it she started tearing up telling me, and she couldn't bring herself to tell her little grandchildren his true fate, but just told them he had just disappeared. Since he came out of nowhere it makes sense that he would leave the same way.

It is sad to know he is gone and the fate he suffered, but at least I can quit wasting time looking for him, and not be so worried about having anymore rabbit droppings to clean up this spring than there already are.

Hank R. Chiff...

Hank was hanging around out front again today, so I managed to get a few more pictures. I really don't believe he is anyone's lost pet. I'm pretty certain he is a Mountain Cottontail which is not a pet bunny breed. I have posted a few pictures for comparison. I have also checked out all the pet rabbit breeds and he doesn't match any of them.

These are Hank.

These are just a few Mountain Cottontail pictures I found on Google images. Of course, these pictures are of much better quality than mine, but if you were to see Hank for real, you would be able to see that he looks just like these. I wish I could get a close up of his eyes when he's on alert to make sure I'm not going to hurt him.