Marsh Rabbit in My Garden by Aimee Grace

Description

Living on a canal brings lots of wildlife our way, including the Florida Marsh Rabbits. They are part of the Cottontail family, but are very different. They only live by water, are strong swimmers and walk on all fours, more like a dog, most of the time. They are smaller than the Cottontails and have darker colored coats and small tails that are grey underneath, not white, like their cousins. They eat not only the grass and flowers, but also enjoy small branches, bromeliad plants and some of the fruit seeds that fall from many species of palm trees. One day, I found two of them eating the skin off a mango in my backyard. I watched them roll the mango, to peel the skin off with their teeth, never ingesting any of the fruit itself. I took this shot in my front yard in a flower bed containing Crown of Thorns flowers among others. Taken with my Canon EOS 60D and a Canon 300mm zoom lens. Settings: f/7.1, 1/500 sec., ISO-1600, Exposure Bias -1.3 step, focal length – 300mm, max aperture 5, no flash, no tripod.

Species

Florida Marsh Rabbit