Saturday, March 20, 2010

First day of spring - still plenty of snow

Our first day of spring was beautiful - warm and sunny - and you could feel spring in the air. On the ground, however, we still have at least 8 inches of snow. Today, for the first time in a month I ventured to our enclosure to check whether any rabbits survived and if the fence needs any repairs. As it turned out, the fence is in a good shape, but rabbits are not.
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There are patches of bare ground but it is still very hard to walk. I took Elli along, and I could see her disapointment. She could not smell any rabbits and I could not find any sign of wildlife - there were no tracks on the snow, no droppings, nothing.

Elli worked hard to find rabbits but she started only one in the 11 acre field.

It looks like most of the rabbits that we had seen in January did not survive the four-five foot snowfall in February. Only in the small patch of brush near the gate to our yard I noticed some signs of life - some sumac that rabbits (or maybe just one rabbit) chewed on. The sumac was at least four feet, but was chewed up to the very top.
At the end of my walk I found some sign of spring - catkins are out. There is hope that spring will come soon, but it is not here yet. Blood tracking training has to wait...

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