Oko Ake Zaptan

Monday, May 31 to Sunday, Jun 6, 2021: high 96, low 44, gust 32 mph, moisture 0.0"

This morning, Jordan and i witnessed an amazing scene: a mother rabbit and her babies at their nest. In the photo above you can make out two of the baby rabbits, but there were four of them huddled together next to and under their mother. She must have been feeding them. To get to see this would have been remarkable. But what happened next is still almost unbelievable! She licked them and within a minute or two had them pointed head-first into their nest. Then they crawled forward until only their backs were visible. The nest is small in diameter and short in length, barely large enough for the four to fit. Then the mother turned around and, using her front legs, gently pulled dirt from in front of her and pushed it beneath and behind her onto the entry of the nest. She was enclosing the opening and thereby camouflaging it from predators. After a little bit of dirt work, she turned around and tamped the dirt with her front paws. Working quickly but unhurredly, she continued until there was just a small opening into the nest, sort of like a breathing hole. But then she cover even that with dirt and tamped it down. She buried her babies alive! When the opening was completely sealed shut, she meticulously sniffed all around the nest, carefully moving a little dirt or some pebbles and rocks, before hopping a number of feet away and proceeding to groom herself. We were stunned. Hours later we could tell that the opening had been disturbed, supposedly so she could feed her babies, but we did not see her doing that.