Back in the summer this field used to be hopping with rabbits. Walking up the track which runs along the lower side of it, one could count fifteen or more, some....
....feeding out in the middle of the field as if buzzards didn't exist. Some of the rabbits were exotic, like....
....this one, one of several which had a rogue gene which made them even more visible to predators.
Since July, there has been an almost catastrophic decline in rabbit numbers. Now, the field never has a rabbit in it, not in the daytime, and the only ones we see are....
....those that live in our road. We see them in the early morning - hence, with apologies, the poor quality of this picture taken from beside the kitchen sink as I was making the early morning cup of tea - and, unfortunately, sometimes in our back garden where we grow our vegetables.
I don't know what's happened to them but we've seen this before, and each time they bounce back, but the current numbers are worryingly low if the rabbit population is going to survive the winter.
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