Bright eyes at silflay

Another sun-drenched evening, another stroll with camera at the ready. Only a rabbit was sighted this time, frozen to the spot as it eyed me, eyeing it.

Silflay is the word Richard Adams invented for the evening grazing routine in his 1972 saga Watership Down. (The book is a masterpiece of zoomorphic literature, in another league entirely from the film which can scare the wits out of children and adults alike.)

Rabbits have these enormous eyes and ears to monitor for danger, ever present in the form of foxes (if not men with guns). Sure enough, crime scene evidence revealed that one of this bunny's relatives had already been sampled. I know that not everybody is as interested in faeces as I am so if you don't want to see fox poo don't click this link.

It's very characteristic in its shape and the way it's deposited on a tuft of grass (for scent marking) but especially interesting is what it reveals about the fox's meal. The snow-white turd is made up of close-packed fur and bone fragments, bleached in the sun, and the larger, wine-dark droppings consist of a mass of blackberry skins and seeds. The fox appears to have eaten a rabbit for first course followed by a fruity dessert, a vulpine version of lapin aux mûres in other words.

Fortunately for this bunny I only captured it with my camera.