Nature Note #145: Encounters with Audubon's Mammals ((The Floridian Wood Rabbit) of Syracuse)

Lepus Sylvaticus, Grey Rabbit*

For the past few weeks, I have the regular pleasure of watching the behavior of a common mammal species out the back of my apartment. Eastern Cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus) are a common sight on the "green patch" that fills the space between my apartment window and the Worker's Compensation Building not ten feet beyond. 

Despite living in a mid-sized city in central New York, wildlife abounds on small green patches around the city, but are only noticed by those with the sharpest eyes and greatest awareness of the potential of their natural surroundings. My initial impression of the city was that it was a barren concrete wasteland populated largely by pigeons and sparrows, with rats running rampant in the sewers below. The only potential interlude to the hulking grey masses and hard rivers of tarmac lacing their way through a highly altered landscape are any number of city parks, playgrounds, and gardens. Syracuse is blessed with an abundance of these parks and from there, both urban and suburban wildlife are quite common. 

As the title of the post suggests, the name used is a translation of their scientific name (minus the "...of Syracuse" bit obviously). Most scientific names with a place name like Megaptera novaeanglie (Humpback Whale or "Big wing of New England) or Vireo philadelphicus (Philadelphila Vireo or "Vireo of Philadelphia", to be pedantic) refer to the location where the first specimen was collected and described. However, just because you have a place name in your epithet, doesn't mean you actually live in that area. In the case of the Philadelphia Vireo, even as they were first described as having visited that area of Pennsylvania, they are at best an uncommon passage migrant through the area in the spring and don't even nest in the state itself!

Where and whether my visiting cottontails have a nest that they keep is unknown, but their regular visits have been a welcome break from the chattering starlings and bitching House Sparrows (Passer domesticus). For the most part, they hang out underneath my windowsill and munch on the grass and clovers that cover the green patch. Occasionally when they feel comfortable enough, they will lay in the grass, munching away or if opportunity permits, they will wash themselves in a similar manner to a cat by licking their paws and rubbing their faces. 

While they prefer brushy thickets, open woods with undergrowth, and old farm fields, it seems like many mammals in an urban landscape, the cottontail is adapting to those small green spaces in between our own boxy, looming structures. However, that isn't to say life in the city is easy. I had the misfortune of seeing a road killed cottontail in the street the other day, another casualty of the steel-axeled marauder known as the automobile. Fortunately, those cottontails that dwell below my windows are safe and continue to visit most days. Hopefully, they will visit right through the summer as well, but for now I'm appreciative for any moment I get to see these delightful mammals up close and personal. 

Credits:

Rare Book Division, The New York Public Library. "Lepus Sylvaticus, Grey Rabbit. Natural size. Old & young." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1845 - 1848. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47da-6d38-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

All other images were taken by myself and belong to me.