Wildlife & Related

[Hummer]

Last Saturday, I heard some panicked screaming right outside the window. Thought it might be a Cooper's Hawk that took down a sapsucker, but no. Walked out to find a Long-tailed Weasel with a death grip on a young cottontail rabbit. I scared off the weasel but bunny was dying. The weasel soon returned and hauled it off. The rabbit probably weighed twice as much as the weasel.

Weasels kill by a bite through the skull or the spinal cord in the neck. It was violent and the screaming was distressing because we like having the bunnies around, but the weasel is probably feeding young too. The weasel was small, so probably a female. Last summer we watched a weasel kill a chipmunk. This year our property is devoid of chipmunks and ground squirrels, and there are fewer tree squirrels.