That is probably one of the weirdest titles I've EVER made.So we have some wild hares in our front yard. There's a good bit of story to them, and I might type that up in a little bit. I wanted to post a picture of them, but I figured since I wasn't really being artistic about it, it wouldn't really belong in the photography thread. So I figured I'd just put them in off topic.
No they don't have names. They are both female. There WAS a male, but I'll explain that later. Currently they're both in a cardboard box right next to me. That'll also be explained.
STORY TIME MUTHAforgetAS
So around mid-afternoon on Monday, August 4th, I was playing fetch with my dog Riley (
Doge) in our front yard, when she suddenly lost interest in playing Ball. At the time, I was checking my student e-mail because I was expecting some college information. I look up to see if Riley had gone to the bathroom or was at least gonna bring me the ball, and at the same moment I saw her pick something up and heard some VERY displeased squeaking(?). I had thought it was a baby bird that must've fallen from a nest (I live in North Carolina, and we get ALL kinds of birds that nest around in my neighborhood. I like to admire them and I think birds make for great photography, so we naturally have bird feeders and a bird house.) So I yell out for her to drop it, over and over. By the third time, she's set it down gently in the grass and I'm overlooking. It was a baby bunny. She had found a nest of them, three to be exact. They just barely had their fur coats started, their eyes were sealed shut still, and this one had two fresh holes in it.
Disclaimer: I originally thought the wounds were just cuts, so I assumed that the hare would be fine. But it died, so I'm assuming the wounds were much deeper.
Riley didn't mean to hurt it. My dad (who has done a lot of hunting and absolutely LOVES our dog) has said that Golden Retrievers are renowned game dogs, because of their soft mouths. Well, this is the one time it wasn't soft enough. I'm sort of an animal nut, and I wanted to try and help the poor thing. I called my dad while he was at work and told him what happened and asked him if there was anything I could do. He told me that I could put some anti-viral/bacterial on it and hope. I did. I checked on them the next morning, and he didn't make it. I removed the dead hare and left the other two alone for the day.
After that, I kind of felt obligated to keep the other two safe. So I set up some orange flags around where the -burrow- is (it's like 2" deep and just a bunch of dried grass nesting.) We've been mowing around it when we do yard work. I've been visiting them almost daily to see how they're doing. The human interaction clearly hasn't scared off the mother, because they continue to get larger, and I've seen her around them time and time again.
Recently, we've been getting some VERY heavy rain. There was a flash flood warning just a little bit ago, and it's been nothing but crazy thunder and lightening ever since 8pm. So I asked my mom if she thought we should bring them inside for the duration of the storm, and well...
Right now they're inside their box. One of them is very calm around me, while the other is (understandably) very skiddish.
--10:00pm update- The rain stopped and the flood warning has ended, so I let them back outside. One of them actually LEAPED out of my hands and into the grass (safe and fine, I checked it after the jump) and I let the other one down out of my hand. The first one actually spooked a frog (toad?) I'm gonna go check on them in a couple minutes to make sure it's not harassing them.
--10:22pm update- Went outside with my flashlight (lol jk it was my iPhone). I found one, but the other is MIA. I'll check back tomorrow when I wake up to see if maybe she was just a little freaked out from all the thunder and lightening. There WAS a large toad hanging around when I dropped them off, but the other female is still there. If the toad ate the rabbit (doubt it, about the same size and it didn't make any immediate moves towards the kit), the other female HOPEFULLY wouldn't have stuck around to be the second course meal. We'll see what happens tomorrow morning.
