Down the Rabbit Hole

It's that precious, quiet time of day when I'm the only one awake, and the rest of the house sleeps.  It is an in-between week for us.  We've moved out of the big-city apartment and are staying with friends while we do a few projects in our new place.  It's hard to believe that in a week and a half we'll be living in our own home again!  In the meantime, I'm still sorting through pictures from last year, and I couldn't remember if I ever wrote about a small adventure I had one spring night in the barley field.

K.J. and I loved walking in the field up the road from our house in the spring and summer because there was a full-fledged rabbit warren living around the Devil's Arrows.  If you went out at twilight and walked quietly and carefully and no dog-walker happened along, you could see dozens of rabbits enjoying their nightly silflay.  (I read Watership Down last summer, which is full of special rabbit language.) 

About two weeks after I took the above photos I went out again one night.  I walked down a different path and spotted several more rabbit holes as well as a poor, wounded warrior who looked like he'd lost an eye.

I don't know if these pictures are as interesting to anyone else, but I just loved these guys.  

I was snapping away, trying to get as close as possible without making them scatter.  I stopped to look at the screen on my camera to see how the pictures were coming out when I noticed an extra face in the background of one picture.  What is that??  I looked down.  Then I looked back up at the rabbits.  At the very top right side of the picture there is a sly face in the shadows if you look closely.

Look at him!  I couldn't believe it.  I'd always wanted to see a fox but so far I'd only seen one at night and never in Boroughbridge.  I think I saved a few bunnies' lives that night because not long after I noticed him, he looked up and noticed me, too, and bolted.  I left pretty quickly after that, too, because all of a sudden I wasn't sure about what else was concealed in the barley field.  But I'll never forget the night I watched a fox prepare to pounce on these unsuspecting rabbits.