I still lurk and smile when reading -and seeing- cottontail postings. *Elly's compliments are very kind.* Good advice to google. Off the top of my head I can't recite the best sites I've found for helping cottontail youngsters. By the sound of it, I'm guessing the kids are two or so weeks old. Though genetics make some youngsters super big and other cottontail babies less robust. Eyes open at approx. 7-10 days. If they jostle for best position in the shallow nest, they gotta be an adequate gram weight. Yeah, I would very carefully try to recover the nest with fur but the baby kits could also undo your well intentions if they are large enough to forage outside. If the fur is partially moved, i'm guessing they are sneaking about and nibbling area greens. Hope they won't be spotted by a crow or hawk or land-roaming predator and they'll move to safety real soon. How long before they leave a nest? Is it mother bunny who leads the way for them to a more safe location. -Nope, they can just spelunker out on there own, get scared and scatter, or go searching for alternative safe haven. There is lots of high vegetation on my property but she chose to nest them right next to my garage under a small low growing pine. -Whew, good the nest is under an evergreen and near your garage to discourage easy spotting. The nest appears not to be deep but I am just guessing at that. Some of the fur nexting material has moved off of them from their movement. Should I put that back over the opening? -I'd be tempted to recover the nest and take huge strides away but sounds like they'll be mobile soon and move out. Mom will nurse for 2+ full weeks and start to wean around day 17. If they've made it to jostling position, I commend you for keeping the predators far away. Hope you can create some brushy or fortified hidey areas for the little ones... I will ditto elly and vonyon's sentiments. Best of luck in helping them off to a good start ~ and cottontail-safe haven.

Finally no more little skippers. There were still clouds of them even a couple of weeks ago--it's been very warm. Only asters (numerous species) and a shade-loving goldenrod are still in bloom. I had been noting the occasional monarch--presumably migrating--right up to this past weekend, when the rains finally came. Saw them on a recent trip to upstate NY too. Predominant bird right now is bluejay--never saw so many in my yard before. Hope they don't chase away the cardinals, chickadees, titmice, and other normal winter residents. Tons of berries and fruits of all descriptions, as well as seeds, all over the place--crabapples, acorns, dogwood berries, late raspberries, pokeweed berries, coneflower and rudbeckia seeds, grass seed, native bittersweet. There's so much food around that I've been noticing dogwood berries remaining on trees or falling to the ground all over the neighborhood--unheard of. Lots of evidence that chipmunks are using our brush pile--acorn shells all around, our dog is intensely interested in sniffing there. Rabbits not as evident as earlier in the season. I hope at least some became meals for hawks, because when their numbers increase too much my young shrubs can't get through the winter. The color on the poison ivy is particularly gorgeous right now (I don't have any, although I wouldn't remove it if it popped up in an out-of-the way corner). I bet some people admire it but have no idea what it is (what it is is one of the best wildlife food plants that exist). I'd much rather see poison ivy climbing a tree than English ivy (yes, I know many of you will vigorously object to those last couple of sentences). Also my spicebush is a lovely yellow. This is the first year that rabbits didn't eat it down to the ground over the winter, and it looks lovely, planted in a small island with coralberry, ninebark, ferns, and a dogwood that's turning only a muddy brown-red this year. The virginia creeper's color isn't particularly nice this year, and most trees even upstate just looked kind of grey, after a very hot and dry season. The trees and shrubs in my miniwoodland are all still green. A good fall for fruit but a poor one for color.

It's sometimes a process, rehabber46, just learning (sometimes the hard way) what to do or not do. I see it all around me, the destruction of habitat as the city encroaches on the more 'wild' part of a county. People fleeing the 'city' move into portions of the county that were basically flattened and stripped of trees and shrubs, acres of it. Makes no sense to me, to be honest. Those bare and manicured yards are often kept that way with pesticides. Heck, we don't even spray for mosquitos. We just let the bats do the job for us. Right now, my yard is covered in tons of leaves. Many people don't know this, but some 300 species of insects (butterflies, moths, native bees, etc) overwinter in leaves, many of them attached to the very things most rake, mulch, mow, and clip away. Leaving leaves on the lawn, undisturbed, means far more beautiful and beneficial insects in the coming spring, and it also means more food for the birds as well. We've planted 2 plots of garden for hummingbirds and butterflies (and bees of course), and we've also planted native shrubs (additional ones to those already out there) for birds. American Beautyberry was our most recent. We have oaks that drop an abundance of acorns, several black cherry trees, maples, pine, and tons more. Even holly is beneficial to birds. As long as it's native, it's beneficial. As they say... fresh food, water sources, and shelter (for protection against predators and nesting), and you'll be helping nature thrive. Honestly, it's a lot less yard work when the shrubs are left 'scrubby' and the leaves are left until the temps are back into the 50's consistently, when raking is less harmful to what's overwintering in those leaves. I see more and more people going for the 'cottage garden' or 'wild garden' look for both just landscape.. and even vegetable gardens. I prefer the more messy and wild gardens than the sterile landscapes of most suburbs.

Well, I would set up mole traps then. Not with the goal of eliminating them, just tamping down the numbers. We do that with chipmunks. We kill some every year but we haven't eliminated them. When the populations of prey get high compared to the predators, prey populations will come down naturally through disease and predation, unless you have a problem with your predator population. We had a lovely woods across the street with great horned owls nesting. Two years ago they logged all the big trees out of there, so now we will obviously have more problems with moles . . . when numbers are super high, that's when your system is out of whack. I would stop aiming for elimination and go more for lessening of the numbers. You might feel better about your successes then. I have the same problems with squirrels and woodchucks. We have to go to all kinds of lengths to keep them out of stuff, because it is not easy to trap and kill them in our suburban environment, and we also don't want to leave poisons around . . . Just fyi, my good friend did his doctoral research on earthworms. They are not native to the US, so I wouldn't feel too bad about tamping down their numbers in any way I could as well. Perhaps switching more of your yard to natural woodsy or prairie type of landscaping might help. Highly fertilized lawns harbor all kinds of pests just by the nature of how they have to be managed . . . lots of nutrients and water to keep them looking like an unnatural green carpet . . .