Anne Elliott's photos with the keyword: jackass rabbit

This morning, I am posting three photos from my archives, all taken in June 2014. I just haven't been getting out and, on the very occasional time I have been out with my camera, there has been so little to photograph. As for Mountain Bluebirds, I have seen one very distant male so far this spring. Ha, is it really spring? We had yet another snowfall yesterday! This White-tailed Jackrabbit was busily eating grass at the Union Cemetery, right alongside the Reader Rock Garden. Sometimes when I see it, it's happily hopping around at the Reader Rock Garden. This time, I spotted it as I was driving very slowly through the cemetery on my way home, enjoying nibbling on blades of grass - it obviously tasted far too good to leave just because of me. Taken on 25 June 2014. We have a lot of these Jackrabbits in the city - apparently, they tend to come out at night (nocturnal), but I often see them in my neighbourhood in the daytime. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_jackrabbit

Almost three weeks ago, on 30 June 2016, I just made it in time for a botany visit to our main naturalist leader's home and garden. He and his wife have an amazing double-lot garden, full of so many kinds of flowers, including a good variety of native plants. They also had a little visitor in their front garden, a Jackrabbit, hiding from us all - or at least thinking s/he was hidden. One of my favourite plants is Showy Milkweed - love the cluster of individual flowers and buds growing on a rounded head. These plants have spread over a lot of the front garden. All they need now is for Monarch butterflies to fly a bit further north than they usually do and discover this little bit of butterfly heaven. In 2012, though, it was very unusual, as people were seeing a few of these amazing butterflies in Alberta, including in Calgary. I even got to see and photograph a couple of Monarch caterpillars in this garden in July 2012, for the very first and last time. Milkweed does not normally grow in Calgary, though we have seen a plant or two growing in the wild at one location in the city. "Monarchs only use milkweed for their eggs - no other plant will do. There is a good reason for this. Milkweed is poisonous and the caterpillars absorb the poison into their bodies, thus making them immune to predators." From edmontonnaturalizationgroup. The National Geographic has an amazing, fascinating video of the life story of these spectacular butterflies - couldn't find a link to it, unfortunately. edmontonnaturalizationgroup.org/blog/2012/08/13/wildflowe... ""Pollination in this genus is accomplished in an unusual manner, as the pollen is grouped into complex structures called pollinia (or "pollen sacs"), rather than being individual grains, as is typical for plant pollen. The flower petals are smooth and rigid, and the feet of visiting insects (predominantly large wasps, such as spider wasps, which visit the plants for nectar) slip into notches in the flowers, where the sticky bases of the pollinia attach to the feet, pulling the pollen sacs free when the pollinator flies off. Bees, including honey bees only gather nectar from milkweed flowers, and are generally not effective pollinators despite the frequency of visitation. Species in the Asclepias genus grow their seeds in pods. These seed pods contain soft filaments known as either silk or floss. The filaments are attached to individual seeds. When the seed pod ripens, the seeds are blown by the wind, each carried by several filaments." From Wikipedia. Our leader also has a large vegetable garden. One thing that always fascinates me is the Egyptian Walking Onion. Each one seems to take on its own artistic shape and I love to photograph these - both fascinating and quite beautiful. In the afternoon of this day, we experienced a huge rain and hail storm. Fortunately, it cleared up in time to go on Don Stiles' annual evening Bluebird route trip. I always look forward to going with Don on his nest box route, checking on a few of the boxes and finding either Bluebird or Tree Swallow eggs or babies. Don records all the information about numbers and dates, and also demonstrates how he carefully bands the young birds. Thanks, as always, Don, for an enjoyable evening outing and thank you for all the many, many years (must be somewhere around 35?) you have spent helping to preserve our beautiful Bluebirds. We all enjoyed seeing the various other bird species during the evening, too.

This White-tailed Jack Rabbit (Jackrabbit) was busily eating grass at the Union Cemetery, right alongside the Reader Rock Garden. Sometimes when I see it, it's happily hopping around at the Reader Rock Garden. This time, I spotted it as I was driving very slowly through the cemetery on my way home, enjoying nibbling on blades of grass - it obviously tasted far too good to leave just because of me. Taken on 25 June 2014. We have a lot of these Jack Rabbits in the city - apparently, they tend to come out at night, but I often see them in my neighbourhood in the daytime. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_jackrabbit

This White-tailed Jack Rabbit (Jackrabbit) was busily eating grass at the Union Cemetery, right alongside the Reader Rock Garden. Sometimes when I see it, it's happily hopping around at the Reader Rock Garden. This time, I spotted it as I was driving very slowly through the cemetery on my way home, enjoying nibbling on blades of grass - it obviously tasted far too good to leave just because of me. Taken on 2 July 2014. We have a lot of these Jack Rabbits in the city - apparently, they tend to come out at night, but I often see them in my neighbourhood in the daytime. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_jackrabbit flic.kr/p/nVM4c5

This was such a cute Jackrabbit! We first bumped into each other when we came round a corner in opposite directions. We both stopped dead in our tracks - and then off it scampered. No chance to try and get a photo. A short while later, after walking through the last part of the Reader Rock Garden, there it was on the grassy edge of the gravel road. Not sure what it was so busy eating (maybe the Clover?), but it obviously tasted far too good to leave just because of me. After many minutes, it finally looked up and gave me this funny look. Photographed on 7 August 2013. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_jackrabbit