Saturday, January 25, 2025

It’s been a cold week, especially at dawn:  -6 Tuesday, -10 Wednesday, 5 to 10 above Thursday and Friday, back to 0F this morning. The snow from last Sunday has stuck around on the ground as well as on our solar panels, shutting down our solar production until warmer temps melt off the snow. The feeders are draining less quickly as fewer birds are visiting each day. I hope they have all survived by moving somewhere warmer. The diversity of birds is still high, including a hand-full of bluebirds that we see each day.

For several years we’ve had eastern cottontail rabbits in our yard year-round. Numbers vary from 1-2 up to a family of four bunnies, their mother, and a few other adults. Srini saw three adult rabbits in the yard a few nights ago. This morning as I looked out the front windows, down below there were several piles of round, brown rabbit pellets. There is good cover there for the rabbits to sit and digest their food. These pellets were the second pass for the rabbit as they are coprophagous. After nibbling and digesting plant material they pass soft, greenish, shriveled-looking pellets. They eat those (coprophagy) and pass a second well-processed round pellet, usual while resting in a protected site under brush, shrubs, or brambles.

Cottontail rabbit pellets in our front yard.