When an eastern cottontail rabbit appears in our yard, my husband, a trained scientist, and I, a volunteer scientist, call it a bunny. There’s just something about wild bunnies.
We’ve had several adult bunnies running around the yard all winter, nibbling on plants, twitching their noses and chasing one another. In spring, we noticed some baby bunnies, i.e., tiny fluff balls that had a lot of growing to do.
When one got too close to the road, my husband, who isn’t fond of squirrels and chipmunks creating havoc in the yard, rescued the young rabbit and placed it far away from the road in a large clump of vegetation. We have lots of clumps of vegetation in our front and backyards, including stands of Virginia bluebells, geraniums, ferns, shrubs and other plants where the bunnies can hide. And procreate.
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There’s also some lawn, not treated with herbicides or pesticides, upon which they can run from hiding place to hiding place. Eastern cottontail rabbits require plenty of places such as dense shrubbery for escape. They also need foraging areas such as grassland and pastures. No wonder suburban yards are perfect places for this common mammal.
Rabbits mostly feed at night, and lately we’ve been seeing various sizes of bunnies chasing one another as the sun sets. We’re not sure if there are two sets of adults defending territory and how many young ones there are, but we have seen them munching clover and grass. In the winter, they eat twigs and bark. They also eat prized plants, which incurs the wrath of some homeowners.
Last year, rabbits ate our prized native Michigan lilies, which open in midsummer. We sometimes call them Turk’s cap lilies because they resemble a Turkish hat with their orange petals curving downward.
This year, we hope to defend the plants without harming the rabbits. They seem to avoid the leaves and stems, but start munching when the buds emerge. Friends with rabbit troubles have suggested using garlic, cayenne pepper and other natural ingredients. Garlic works great, one friend told me.
She buys a bunch of large containers of garlic powder and sprinkles it plants the rabbits like. “Works like a charm,” my friend insists, adding, “Thank goodness they have very sensitive noses.”
So we’ll be dousing a garlic concoction on the leaves and stems of the lilies before the buds open and hope to have glorious blooms in summer. Unfortunately, a tiny twig of a new native American plum we planted got bit by the bunnies.
Rabbits indeed are prolific. A female eastern cottontail can bear more than one litter per year with an average of five young. Many of them don’t make it to adulthood for various reasons, including predation by coyotes, raccoons and hawks.
Suburban residents have likely heard the piercing cry of a rabbit being snatched in the middle of the night by an owl. An eastern cottontail rabbit’s excellent sense of smell helps it sniff out predators. It can twitch its nose up to 120 times per minute to hone in on an approaching predator. It may then dart out of a shrub and run or hop in a confusing zigzag pattern to the cover of a nearby wood grove. Sometimes the strategy works. Other times it doesn’t.
As is so often said, that’s nature, and it’s all part of the cycle of life.
Still, we have more compassion for the bunnies in our yard compared with the gray squirrels.
To me, a furry gray-brown creature with big, perky ears and a tail that looks like a big ball of fluffy cotton is cuter than a bushy-tailed rodent that claws tree bark and relentlessly tries to get into bird feeders. I know. Eastern gray squirrels are native, too. But there’s just something about bunnies … as long as they stay away from my lilies.
Sheryl DeVore has worked as a full-time and freelance reporter, editor and photographer for the baiduhai and its subsidiaries. She’s the author of several books on nature and the environment. Send story ideas and thoughts to [email protected].