This is not my rabbit, this oblong figure of fur plump on the snow where the ground slides off into a gully of scraggly alders, dogwood, and honeysuckle. I’m a mile from home, too far from the rabbit’s home range of only an acre or so. So, no, this is not the rabbit under my birdfeeder every night.
It has, however, been eating well. It is a big cottontail, and it doesn’t seem too concerned about moving that big body—perhaps 4 pounds—just for me. I guess we’re friends; this encounter has been happening day after day when I trek the trail on snowshoes.
The rabbit just sits there like a watermelon with ears, sometimes sideways to me, other times facing me, only yards away.Sometimes it stands as if to query me. I bid for a reaction with inane questions: Have you brushed and flossed your incisors today? Have you combed your fur? Wanna carrot? No response, just a cautious stare from large brown eyes, processing if I’m a curious visitor or lurking danger.
Oh, those large eyes, “soft, dark, and brown,” like the line from a Lovin’ Spoonful song. A rabbit’s eyes are placed high atop the sides of its head, providing a 320-degree field of vision, the only blind spots directly behind and for a few inches in front. The big cottontail I’m watching has no trouble seeing me even when it’s not facing me.
I move to the foot bridge above a dry creek. With blobs of snow on the bed rocks, I’m looking down on a mosaic of white, gray and black. Keeping with the color scheme, a chickadee flits below me from one branch to another, climbing as it might be, up the steep bank.
The chickadee comes close, all five inches and half-ounce of it. “Fee-bee, fee-bee.” It is just below eye level, on a branch about six feet away. I study it, and take photos. The black-capped chickadee wears a black cap, of course, on its roundish head with a black throat. Its cheeks are white, as is its nape, from which a little white spills raggedly onto its gray back. Wing feathers have distinct stripes of white, gray and black.
From this vantage point of a chickadee’s back, I see only a rim of its belly extending beyond the wings. The creamy belly down I can see has hints of rust. The black, rounded split tail is trimmed with gray.
A cottontail and a chickadee. Ordinary sightings, for sure, but the closer one gets, the more beautiful are our winter neighbors. That includes the blue jay at the bird feeder. Though sometimes scorned for raucous behavior, the blue jay wears an attractive palette of blue, much like a da Vinci landscape rolling across the canvas in endless blues.
The blue jay’s back is ultramarine blue, some say, but others see it as indigo blue. Its wing feathers are Berlin blue, and secondary hues, trimmed in black and white, include the blues China, azure and flax-flower. So pretty, the jay can chase away the winter blues.
From my walk’s close encounters came the inspiration for a new year’s resolution: I will ease even closer to wildlife, recording the astounding details of birds and critters. A year of fur and feathers.
Note: My book, “Soul of the Outdoors,” is available through me, at bookstores, and from online sellers. For a personally-signed book, email davegreschner@icloud.com or text or call me at 715-651-1638. The book is available at bookstores in Rice Lake (Old Bookshop), Eau Claire (Dotters), Menomonie (Dragon Tail), Hudson (Chapter2Books), Spooner (Northwinds), Three Lakes (Mind Chimes), and Bayfield (Honest Dog), and in Duluth, Minn., at The Bookstore at Fitger’s.