The growing season is winding down for real now. This coming week, the first frost is expected in our area. All summer long, we were busy gardening instead of adding to this site. But now, the evenings are long and perfect for telling what was going on since June.
In early July, something very unexpected happened. We are used to seeing squirrels and various birds and the occasional rat, but we were very surprised to suddenly find a rabbit in the garden. At first we thought that someone had dumped a pet into the garden. However, experts inspected photographs and came to the conclusion that our new resident is a wild Eastern Cottontail, a species that nobody keeps as pets. Where on earth was it coming from? We could not imagine that this bunny had hopped through the busy West Village to get to LaGuardia Corner Garden. But there is was. The experts told us that rabbits live in pocket parks all over the city even if nobody sees them; who knew?
A longish discussion ensued over what to do about this bunny. Since it is a wild animal, relocating it was out of the question. Aside from the difficulty of catching it, releasing it elsewhere was not allowed. Would it stay in the garden? Might it even reproduce as rabbits are famous for? Some of us were afraid that the bunny might not find enough to eat and others were worried that it might find too much.
By now we know that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. The rabbit is still around and there is still only one. It looks happy and healthy. Some gardeners lost plants to its appetite. However, the bunny seems to change its diet on a regular basis. After it nibbled marigolds and sunflowers down to a stump, it moved on to kale and never touched marigolds again. The kale recovered and cosmos were eaten. These remained popular but the bunny added balloon flowers to its meals. Another favorite were asters. Some of our native asters had no flowers this year. But all in all, the damage was less than initially feared.
Now, we wonder what this little animal will do once it gets cold. Cottontails don’t dig burrows and don’t live in colonies like the European rabbits from Watership Down. They also don’t hibernate like bears. Somehow, they must find shelter and food all winter long. We are pretty sure that our rabbit will teach us another lesson about urban wildlife as time goes on.
