Rabbit wars!!

[slr2moons]

I had decided to post every Friday during this bout of Work Hell just so you all would know I'm still alive, but I saw something this evening that made me decide to speak up a day early. 

At the every end of my jogging session, I was standing outside the front door reading the last few pages of my latest issue of Shojo Beat when I heard a loud rustle in the grass and looked up. We have a lot of cottontail rabbits this year, and they're finally catching on that the big scary humans aren't going to hurt them though we're still scary. Anyway, I looked up at the noise and saw two bunnies facing off about 10 feet away from me. They both crouched there, quivering, staring each other down. Then one charged the other, which leaped a couple of feet straight up in the air. The charging bunny darted underneath, then stopped and whirled while the 2nd bunny landed and whirled to face off again. They stared more, quivering. One grunted, then charged a 2nd time! The challenged leaped up, landed. Whirl, stop, stare. Again, and again, slowly moving away from me and out of the front yard. Sometimes the charger would feint, and not dart at the other rabbit, who would fall for the feint and jump up in the air anyway. They both made soft grunting noises, and not as they moved,but as they crouched there staring. I've never heard rabbits make noises before.

Of course, I was completely entranced by this weird method of battle over the lush weeds lawn and fallen birdseed from my mother's feeders. The rabbits are used to our presence now, though still wary and never letting us get close. And I guess I'd been standing there motionless reading long enough for the two rabbits to decide that the other bunny's intrusion was more important than the big scary human with her nose stuck in a magazine.

Stare, charge, hop, whirl, repeat. Fascinating.