Snowshoe Hare

I took my camera while walking the dog with Cat yesterday. There have been fox tracks all over the yard and road lately, so I wanted to get some shots of it. Rounding the corner from the road, I saw the fox sitting on the snowbank a couple of hundred yards away. He stayed long enough that I managed to snap one shot, just good enough to tell that, yes, the dot sitting on the snow was indeed a fox. Cat walked the dog back a bit while I walked ahead to see If I could spot him in the trees, but there was no sign of the fox.

When Cat caught back up with me, she said she saw a snowshoe hare just off the snowbank. We walked back together and this little guy was sitting in the bushes motionless. I managed to get a few shots, slowly creeping forward before it disappeared in the brush.

There have been quite a few snowshoe hares around lately. They undergo an approximately 10-year cycle in population growth in conjunction with one of their main predators, the Canada lynx. The brilliant white coat of the snowshoe hare turns brown in summer.