Snowshoe Hare

We have a lot of hares roaming around in the underbrush and woods. Now in winter they have turned a muted white to blend in with the snow, and the fur on their back feet splays out under and beyond their long leg bones and toes and allows them to walk without sinking so much. I find them very handsome indeed. The couple that resides closest to our house I call Matilda and Crazy Joe. Matilda is perfectly proportioned, like Albrecht Dürer’s famous rabbit in pen and ink a few hundred years ago. She is demure and a bit shy, scurrying away from nibbling on grasses when I come out to feed the birds. Crazy Joe on the other hand is a bonafide extrovert, leaping in the air for no apparent reason, doing balletic twirls and sometimes racing in circles like the proverbial dog. In the spring and summer he nuzzles Matilda with the thoughtfulness of any ardent swain and even kisses her on the lips. He is long and lean and a good quarter larger than his mate. I talk to him when I emerge from the house and see him sitting on the grass fifty feet away. Two years ago he would bolt under a tree but now my voice and presence is familiar and unthreatening and he allows me to approach within four feet from him. He has not been around much this winter, coming to nuzzle Matilda only once. Has he a harem elsewhere? Is he hunkered down in the woods awaiting the ardor of spring courting? I am waiting too. They have produced several litters over the years, little butterballs of fluff, sticking close to their mom before they leave home and find their own mates. I miss them.