My blog for 3/29/2012 Easter Bunnies

Paradise comes complete with bunnies everywhere.  Probably has something to do with the plethora of coyotes we hear at night--I never know what they're squabbling about, but they fight all the time.
Anyway, as you can see by this first picture, the bunny trail runs through some orange trees where bunnies can be found in groups of five or six every morning and most evenings.  Last evening the little family showed up and scampered their white tails all over the trail rooting for tender grass and flower petals.  Then they played chase for awhile and got into a game of "jump."  I hadn't seen this before.  One would run up to another and jump about six inches into the air like its legs were spring loaded, which of course they are.  Sometimes that one would jump three or four times before running around some more.  Then another one would do the same thing.  My mother told me once she'd seen night "dance" that rabbits performed in the moonlight.  My mother didn't tease very much, so I stashed that information in the back of my mind.  It makes me wonder if the bunny "jump" I witnessed has anything to do with the other.  One baby bunny lives under the rock outside the kitchen window (just to the left of the house behind the orange tree in this picture).  He comes out and hops through the flowers just like the pictures of Easter you see on greeting cards.  His hiding place is excellent because since we moved in with Abby, the coyotes avoid coming through the yard.  Abby is not ferocious, she just has planted her signature around the house three or four times a day.  I've found canines respect each others' territory.

 The second picture is a stairway which actually runs down to the grapefruit trees.  Bunnies don't seem to use it very much, probably because it has no shelter from the overhead predators, red tailed hawks, which patrol the area about ten hours each day.  There are also black hawks doing the same thing but not quite so often.  Anyway, the bunnies avoid the stairs.  Lizards seem to like it though.  A pair of them frequent this stairway--I know it's the same pair because it's a mixed marriage of a charcoal one and a rock colored one.  I've tried to follow them to see if they change color on different surfaces, but they're elusive little devils and disappear frequently so I haven't determined that yet.