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Posts Tagged ‘rabbit’

Wild rabbit in September

Posted in animals, Autumn, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on September 14, 2020| 12 Comments »

It is always enjoyable to observe these fuzzy little Eastern Cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) when I am out walking the trails at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge. This one was suddenly alert as I was getting ready to take this shot and may have detected my presence. From a photographic perspective, I like the shot much better when its head is lifted up than when it is grazing, which is what the rabbit was doing most of the time that I observed it.

If you double-click on the image to see more details, be sure to look into the rabbit’s eye, where you can see a pretty reflection of the

Eastern Cottontail

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Rabbit in Paris

Posted in animals, Nature, Paris, Photography, Travel, Urban, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 24, 2019| 1 Comment »

Any wild animals in Paris? While wandering through the gardens at the Rodin Museum on Friday, I came across this adorable rabbit sunning itself in a semi-shaded open area. I watched it for a while until some noisy visitors scared it away.

I knew there had to be some wildlife in Paris other than the two-legged partygoers that were awfully loud late into the night yesterday in the streets outside of my apartment.

Rabbit in Rodin garden

Rabbit in Rodin garden

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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October rabbit

Posted in animals, Autumn, Nature, Photography, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on October 21, 2019| 6 Comments »

It’s always fun to encounter cute little rabbits like this one that I spotted recently as I was walking along one of the trails at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

I do not see a lot of mammals during my walks, with the notable exception of squirrels, so I am always happy to see a rabbit or a deer or a beaver. As most of you know, I tend to see a lot more insects and birds and that is one of the reasons why they appear so often in my postings.

On the sides of some of the trails at the refuge there are heavy thickets and my observations suggest that they are the preferred habitat for the rabbits, which are almost certainly Eastern Cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus).  The rabbits at the wildlife refuge generally seem to be very cautious, which is probably a good survival tactic, considering the number of hawks and eagles in the area.

This particular rabbit froze in place for a moment when it first detected me, allowing me to get this shot. After a brief pause, it scampered away into the safety of the heavy vegetation.

rabbit

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Reappearing rabbits

Posted in animals, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , on March 13, 2018| 11 Comments »

I know that rabbits don’t go south for the winter, but they seemed to disappear in late autumn and I did not see a single one during the winter months. Suddenly this past week, they started reappearing on the trails at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Yesterday I spotted this cute little Eastern Cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) as it gathered up stalks of grass. Initially the rabbit grazed a bit before it started to accumulate a mouthful of the long, dry stalks of grass—perhaps there are little ones that need to be fed.

Eastern Cottontail

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Rabbits at Occoquan Bay

Posted in animals, Nature, Photography, Summer, wildlife, tagged , , , , on July 22, 2017| 3 Comments »

I don’t feature rabbits very often on this blog because I don’t see them very often. Actually that is not entirely accurate—I have a rabbit named Prime Rib who appears from time to time, but I don’t count him, because he does not live in wild and instead lives in a cage in my living room.

At Huntley Meadows Park,  where I do a lot of my wildlife photography, I rarely see rabbits. Perhaps the marshy and wooded habitat is less than ideal for the rabbits or perhaps the hawks are brutally efficient at keeping their numbers low. During some recent visits to Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, which has more open grassy areas, I’ve spotted numerous rabbits and decided to feature a couple of them today.

In a recent posting, I expressed my concern about possibly oversaturating my readers with dragonfly photos. In an exchange of comments, a faithful reader, Dan Antion, shared similar concerns about his photos of rabbits and squirrels and I warned him that I was going venture into his niche and post some rabbit photos. Dan is one of my favorite bloggers and I encourage everyone to check out his blog No Facilities for his humorous and insightful looks at the joys and frustrations of everyday life as well as some great photos, including images of the aforementioned squirrels and rabbits and his faithful dog Maddie.

This one is for you, Dan.

rabbit

rabbit

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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Happy Easter 2017

Posted in animals, Easter, Flowers, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2017| 12 Comments »

Best wishes for a blessed and happy Easter to all who are celebrating this day. Earlier this morning I went to an outdoor sunrise service at my church at 6:30 a.m. and I am not getting ready for our normal morning service in a couple of hours. Easter is a bit later this year than in some years in the past and it was already light and pleasantly warm when we began our service—in past years we were often bundled up and needed flashlights to read the programs.

I chose two images to celebrate Easter. The first is a macro shot of a flower from a recent trip to Green Spring Gardens and it speaks to me of the growth and renewal of this season. The second is a shot of my PR (Prime Rib), my very own Easter bunny, who greets me each morning.

Happy Easter to all of you.

Easter

Prime Rib

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved

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PR and Katie

Posted in animals, Dog, Photography, Portraits, tagged , , , , , , on March 5, 2017| 7 Comments »

Whenever I walk the two year old German Shepherd who belongs to my son and daughter-in-law,  one of the highlights for Katie is stopping by my house so that she can visit with Prime Rib (PR), my adopted rabbit.

The two of them seem to enjoy staring at each other and sniffing. Katie has never displayed any hostility towards PR and PR is not intimidated by her presence and often just ignores her.

It was an interesting challenge trying to get this shot using available light. Katie kept moving and PR often stayed in a position in which his eyes were not visible. Beautiful morning light was coming in from the right through the sliding glass doors, but it was not exactly where I would have liked it. I ended up using my Canon 24-105mm lens, a lens that I don’t use that often. I particularly like the way that I was able capture Katie’s intense focus and utter fascination with the little rabbit.

PR and Katie

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Odd couple

Posted in animals, Photography, tagged , , , , , , on April 10, 2016| 5 Comments »

This weekend I have been hosting the odd couple. Katie, a young female German Shepherd, has been visiting me and Prime Rib (aka PR), my little gray male rabbit. It is an understatement to say that Katie is utterly fascinated by PR—she just can’t take her eyes off of him.

Sometimes she will put her nose right up against the cage and sometimes she will watch him from a short distance away, but she is always watching him. She particularly seems to like to follow him as he moves about in the cage.

PR pretty much ignores Katie and doesn’t seem to be bothered at all by her presence, even when she is only inches away from him. I have tried to keep an eye on the two of them to see if Katie displays any aggression or if PR shows an signs of fear or anxiety, but so far things seem to be working out ok—I think I am the only one showing signs of being a little anxious.

katiePR1_blog

katiePR2_blog

katiePR3_blog

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Happy Easter to all

Posted in animals, Easter, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on April 5, 2015| 8 Comments »

For the past year, I’ve been hosting a friend in my house, along with her dog and her rabbit. Recently she and her dog moved out, but I still have PR, the rabbit, whose initials expand to Prime Rib.

This morning I decided to try to take a photo of PR, my own little Easter bunny and here was the result.

Happy Easter to all.

Easter bunny

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Round two with a Mamiya 500mm lens

Posted in Birds, Nature, Photography, Portraits, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , on September 25, 2012| 3 Comments »

Yesterday I went out to a local garden with the monster Mamiya 500mm telephoto lens mated to a Nikon D300 to see if I could get some reasonably focused shots. A few days ago I did a posting outlining my initial difficulties in mastering the requirements of shooting in a totally manual mode and I wanted to see if things would be a little easier for me.

It was once again a lot of fun experimenting and I tried taking shots of a wide variety of subjects, including soccer-playing kids, flowers (yes, flowers with a 500mm lens), and a rabbit. Other than the rabbit, I had only limited success. The real test for me, though, was whether I could capture some shots of birds. I noticed a couple of birds perched high up in a tree in a relatively open area and I was able to set up my tripod on the grass and began to make a few exposures. The birds were far enough away that they were not distracted by the sound of the shutter and they stayed in place as I made adjustments. Here are some of my best shots of a crow (I cropped him so you can see the details, including the catch light in his eye) and a mourning dove. I am also including a shot of a bird that almost got away. He flew away just as I tripped the shutter and ended up in the lower left hand corner of the image in an unusual position. I decided also to post a shot of a rabbit that seems to have some personality. In this garden setting, it was the wildest animal to be found.

I have satisfied myself that it is possible to get some good images with this setup, although it requires both patiience and persistence. Is it worth the additional aggravation? My friend, Cindy Dyer, for whom I am testing this configuration will have to make that call for herself.

Close-up of a crow

Mourning dove

The one that almost got away

Rabbit on the grass

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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