Nature Week with a Bunny Burial

This week is National Wildlife Week March 16-20. Since it was a little warmer today I decided today would be our day to celebrate some wildlife. Most of our wildlife hangs out in the greenbelt behind the house...unless you have snake boots I wouldn't venture too far out into the grassy greenbelt at this time of year. You may get more wildlife than what you bargained for.

Summer and I still went into the backyard in hopes that we would find something. We found something almost immediately. We checked our backyard bunny burrow and there they were..3 tiny little newborns nestled in the hole. We oohed and aahed over them relishing in their tiny furry little bodies.

After a few minutes of watching them Summer noticed they had ants on them. I then realized they were not moving at all so I reached down and lightly touched them, which usually will send them into a frenzy. Sadly, they all 3 were dead.

They were fully intact so I knew they had not been bothered by any other wildlife. I could only assume they had drowned in the rain that we had been having for the past couple of days. The burrow is directly underneath the eave of the garage where the water was probably rolling straight off the roof right into their burrow filling it up with water. Poor babies....mostly poor mama bunny. I can only imagine how she felt when she came to care for them and all 3 of them were dead.

Summer insisted that we have a proper burial for them. I wasn't really sure if we should take them out of their burrow but I figured if I wanted the mama bunny to keep using the burrow as a birthing area I should clean out any signs of rotting young. Maybe for bunnies "out of sight, out of mind."

Here are the burial pics:






So much for National Wildlife Week.