Baby Bunny Rescued!

Have a little visitor for the night. A baby bunny. 

Heard the worst prolonged screams - thought it was a strange bird. Heard pitiful cries again. Saw a cat staring intently at something in the yard - when I went out the cat (with collar) scrammed. Heading back in I looked in the direction it was focused on and saw this little brown bunny. I went to pick it up and it screamed (probably in shock by then) and hopped a few hops under my blackberry bush. Saw that its fur was fully pulled back from one hind quarter but no apparent open wounds, no blood. 

It was after 7:30 pm so no vets would be around, and there are no rehabbers near. Spoke to one and left messages for many. Have in a box with towel in quiet, next to window for air and hearing familiar crickets, though box is mostly covered. When I put grass and clover in, the bunny, who had been cowering with eyes shut and barely breathing, moved right on top of the grass. 

I dressed the exposed "skin" with pain relief Neosporin as the rehabber directed and put the fur back over it. Zero struggle (but I am very quiet, slow and gentle). 

Bunnies are low on the food chain and I learned when I did baby bunny rehabbing at the Wildlife Center of Texas that they are blessed with a system that lets them die quickly and easily rather than be aware while in the jaws of something. I thought for sure that would kick in. 

Bunny has perked up quite a bit, so I have hope it will live through the night so I can get it help. Send out a little prayer pls!

AM Baby Bunny Report

This morning I dreaded lifting the towel covering the baby box but I was met with a bright eyed little one and lots of poop pellets. I think that's a good sign. Can't tell if any grass or clover was eaten so put a little lettuce in and some water in a shallow saucer. It began to pour and early birds were singing so I was hoping at least the sounds of nature were helping balance the not-natural environment of a plum colored bath towel. 

It's staying in the corner, of course frightened of me and looks smaller today than it did last night. I do hope that the Nevins Farm SPCA where I take kids a few times a year to teach them about animal rescue and rehab can take this baby -a vet might just put it to sleep. 

Will report back. I don't know if they can stitch fur back on or what, but I do want it to get antibiotics if needed and hopefully be released back into the wild, which is always the hope.

What Mysterious Webs We Weave

I marveled at this web I saw on my property in Virginia a few summers ago… 

What industry, and beauty…

It was a little hard to see - stepping back I took a picture of the place the spider chose to set up shop. 

On that same walk, I saw a pretty scary spider. Being a person who's spent most of her adult life living in cities, I usually just see - at best - the basic little old spider. This one is serious.

And I had the luck to catch her when she was carrying her precious eggs spun into the protective, waterproof, tight little ball that had to keep them as they grow and mature until they are born. This is the purpose of her life. To reproduce, and do all she can to secure that her species goes on… before she herself then dies.

Makes you want to go back and reread Charlottes Web.

That same trip I went to visit the UVA Campus and at the front steps I saw this phenomenon….

 Come October when you drag out the Halloween stuff to decorate, take these as your inspiration. It really does happen in Nature. I have never seen anything like this. Nature continues to awe and inspire.

I really have no idea what kind of insect has the ability or the need to create something like this. Is it cocooning gone wild? No spider would do this right? If it were a group of insects, like bees in a hive, I would understand the profound coverage of the webbing, but to my knowledge, I don't know any insect that can produce this to live in clusters or groups. 

Anyone out there have a clue?

Baby Squirrels in Nest

I always enjoyed coaxing squirrels out of the trees or across a loan to try to get them to eat out of my hand. And I succeeded many times.  It was always a special relationship to

When I started to save sick, injured or orphaned baby squirrels as a part of the animal rehab place I volunteered at, I was their mother.  I nursed them back to health and watched them grow, some of them from the neophyte stage - hairless, eyes not even developed, and so small it was nothing short of astonishing that they were alive - and opened their mouths and nursed with vigor 10x beyond their size.

Here's a neonate that is already furring. I have had them before they're even at this stage. They are about the size of your palm when cupped at this point:

As I nurtured them through every stage till they could eat solid foods and be given to another rehabber for the next stage of acclimation to the outdoors so they could be released back into the wild, I began to have a real curiosity about how they were raised by their own mothers.  I can identify squirrel nests from a mile away, a large leaf covered globe - with a roof not just a bottom part like birds -- or in some even more mysterious hole in a hollow tree - and always wondered what went on in there.

There are so very few pictures of them. People know I'm a squirrel nut so send me videos and pictures and cards galore - I've seen them all, multiple times. But I got this the other day and it was a first.


I love seeming those little babies all curled together, their fur so shiny, their soft little heads, just as they were in my fleece-lined cereal bowls that I made to mock a warm, cozy nest.

I need to Google some kind of Squirrel Nest Cam - not sure if there is one because they would most likely not pick a spot that'd been tampered with… If you know of any, or have any more pictures like this, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

Cut Up Your Plastic 6-pack Holders to Protect Wildlife

Jeff Irwin put this out on social media -This turtle likely crawled through a discarded plastic ring of a 6-pack of beer or soda when it was a baby, and now is being forever strangled in a plastic hangman's noose!