Odd finds

[bunn]

Yesterday on Kit Hill I found what appeared to be the skull of an adult rabbit. Nothing odd about that, except the skull had no eye sockets. I came back and looked up rabbit skulls to double-check: they normally have the huge open eye sockets you would expect from a prey animal. But this one didnt: there were sort of bone plates fused to the skull where you'd expect the eye sockets to be. Very strange.

On the same walk I found an entire sheep skeleton, old enough to be quite clean and white. This is also a little odd, because there are no sheep kept on Kit Hill, and I've walked that way several times and never seen this skeleton before. I am fairly observant, and it's quite noticeable because of the whiteness. You'd have thought if a fox or something was moving bones about they would just have moved one, not the whole lot. It's less odd than the blind rabbit though.

In other news, my pepper plants now have young peppers on them and the raspberries have started fruiting. I have done a couple of paintings on my astoundingly cheap canvases that I bought on ebay, and now I need to buy more paint.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Ooh, a weird mutant. Actually, the weirdest thing is that it was the skull of an ADULT rabbit -- I wouldn't have thought many blind rabbits survive that long. Hope you kept the skull. - Neuromancer

[bunn.livejournal.com]

The size of it was what surprised me - there are foxes and badgers round there, and people walking through with dogs off lead too, though it's not one of the busiest areas.

And not only did the rabbit survive to be a decent size, it was then killed by something that left the skull intact. I am not sure what foxes do, but my cats always seem to eat the heads off the rabbits they catch (they leave the ears. ewww.)

I didn't take the skull because I had no pockets that day and didn't fancy walking all the way back to the car with it in my hands. Might wander over there another time and see if it is still there perhaps.

[chainmailmaiden]

We used to find disturbingly large bits of animal skeleton, that the foxes used to bring into our back garden in W'stow, never a whole carcass though!

Interesting about the rabbit skull, you'd think a blind rabbit would get picked off fairly quickly in the wild. Your description of it reminds me one of the characters in Robert Silverberg's book 'Hot Sky at Midnight', he had no eyes, just dents in his skull, thanks to some genetic meddling when he was a foetus, but he had what they called 'blindsight' so could still see - though not as we do.

[kargicq.livejournal.com]

Actually (apologies if you knew this, dunno how well-known it is), blindsight is also the name of a real phenomenon in neurology -- it does require working eyes though.

Bunn, yeah go back and find that skull, it sounds cool!

Neuromancer

[chainmailmaiden]

Oooo, I didn't know that. *goes off to google it*

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Extract from an ancient bardic poem, newly discovered between the pages of a thirteenth edition of Shakespeare:

"When coneys are, that cannot see,
And sheep lie dead, where no sheep be,
And peppers fruit, near berries red,
The world will end, so Merlin said."

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I have been so often annoyed by people in books who see very odd things indeed and then wander away. If Merlin is predicting the end of the world through blind rabbits, I would somehow like to feel I've documented the fact...