Rabbits’ instincts remain a mystery

THESE DAYS the rabbits seen from our first floor windows hop about in a field of head-high buttercups. Every evening, about eight o’clock, a fox passes at the top of the field.

A stoat lives under the trees across the stream from our garden. It ambushes baby rabbits. We found one still alive, with the characteristic bite-marks at the back of the neck, but it was beyond saving.

Stoats will hunt down rabbits twice their size. Now, in summer breeding colours, this stoat is lovely to behold when glimpsed in the dappled light beneath the trees. It is almost as red as the fox, with a creamy white belly and a vivid black tip on its tail.