Rabbits!

We have at last seen a couple of rabbits up in the crofter's field where, a year or so ago, we would regularly see three or four. The scarcity of rabbits has been brought on by the return of myxomatosis, so their reappearance suggests the worst of this wave of the epidemic may be over.

Rabbits use to be ubiquitous in the British countryside, a useful source of meat and of skins for clothing. I recall as a small boy stalking them while at my prep school so I could draw them - for which I won the school art prize. They also used to be common on Ardnamurchan, and we recall seeing families of rabbits on summer evenings playing on the grass on the opposite side of the road from our shop. They were even more common at Sanna, where they reached almost plague proportions - until myxomatosis and, possibly, the increase in the pine marten population, destroyed them.

So it is good to see them back and, for all the damage they'll probably do to our garden, I hope they thrive.