Calling all Rabbit Experts
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That's how it was in Aridzona, too.
In peak years blacktail jacks were as thick as bugs. The county and state highways were practically paved with squishees, and people would find them stuck in their car's grill when they stopped for gas.
Then, without warning, they disappeared over a couple weeks. The population dropped to 5% or so, and the cycle began again.
The fun part was the peak-year summers brought hungry critters down from the mountains and out of their dens like nothing else. Mountain lions, coyotes, hawks, and so forth.
Made for spectacular varmint hunting, too. Long range from the hillsides morning and evening when they were moving, and walking them up quail-style when it was hot and they were resting in shadows.
(Couldn't eat the things, though. Besides stringy and essentially meatless, they carried all manner of disease-y crap you didn't want to be exposed to by physical contact.)
Here's my buddy Dave eyeballing a spot we called The Gallery. (He was a Pan Am Games pistol champion and Olympic Team alternate)
The view from where he is sitting:
(The denser line of vegetation is an arroyo 400 yards out. Made for convenient range estimation in pre-laser days)
On the mechanized prowl for a fresh walk-up area:
Indeed. Lynx are basically just bobcats in a parka and snowshoes, but the differences are so cool.
Very cool, that’s one of my addictions as well. This is from a quest for Coues, not predators however.
Still fun in AZ, did you live here for a spell?
Here in Spain, they go to the frying pan, especially Valencianas paellas. The rabbit meat, livers and heart, give them an exquisite touch.
From the mid 80's to the mid-2000's with a 5-year chunk out of the middle spent in Ohio (of all places).
Love me some AZ.
Speaking of deer, our favorite jack area was thick with muleys. In the middle of summer you could walk the wider arroyos and there'd be an entire herd staying cool in the overhang and vegetation shadows along the edge. Because desert critters are wired to limit exertion/movement when the sun's up and it's really hot (110F and up), you could go right up to them. Approach to within a few feet. Sounds risky, but if hot enough, they just reluctantly got to their feet and shuffled a couple hundred yards farther along the arroyo and laid down again.
Good times.
Here's another disadvantage of having a yard full of rabbits. They're crawling with these things, which inevitably find their way onto us while we do garden work. This one was on my leg during the morning commute. The wife found one on her the other day too.
I got one to top that. Saw a baby bunny and little squirrel "fighting" like that and at one point the squirrel jumped at the bunny who tried to dodge and they both smacked into each others heads making a tiny little coconut sounds. The squirrel got spun ass over head a few times. And yeah they both kind of went back to their own corner to lick their wounds.
Animals are funny and territorial too.
In case anyone's interested, this turned out to be a real National Geographic moment. This little falcon pounced on an unsuspecting bunny that was lounging in the grass. I had the binoculars on hand and caught the whole thing ... the little paws trying to fight back against the talons. It was quite a show
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