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   The usual routine for my wife and me is to check the trail cameras on Sunday afternoons. We make a leisurely trip around the farm enjoying an hour or two of observing nature and the changing seasons. Saturday was warm and overcast but there was a blizzard forecast for Sunday. We decided to move our routine up one day. It is difficult to enjoy a leisurely ride around the farm in a blinding snowstorm.

   We started our tour by changing the camera memory cards in the one in the paintball woods and up by the thousand-yard bench. When we stopped at the top of the hill, we could hear beagles baying on the trail of a rabbit on the far side of the lake. We drove over there and ran into Damon and Pat, hunting with two of Damon’s beagles. We sat talking while the dogs rounded the hill below us. Before long, a rabbit ran up toward us and stopped well within range of the hunters. We all watched as the dogs got closer and the rabbit hopped away. Bruiser and Cassie ignored us as they went by, noses to the ground, following the scent of the recently departed rabbit. Apparently, the object of the hunt is not to kill rabbits but to train the dogs and exercise the rabbits. Damon told us to go around the hill toward the bottom, and we should be able to see the hunt in progress again.

   Damon and Pat stayed at the top of the hill while my wife and I drove down the path toward a clearing at the bottom. We turned off the side-by-side and listened as the dogs barked and bayed as they followed the rabbit through the thick brush and timber. Before long, we spotted the rabbit hopping leisurely across the opening. He went into the brush on the other side of the trail and made several circles before coming back out where he had gone in. He followed the trail across the opening, back into the brush and made a 90-degree turn. He hopped up this new path for about twenty-five feet and stopped as though he was waiting for the dogs to follow his false trail across the opening. Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, with Cassie in the lead, the two dogs followed the rabbit’s trail, blowing right by the 90-degree turn and across the trail into the brush on the other side. They circled around in the trees and brush for a minute or two and came back on the trail they had been following. When they got to the place where the rabbit had made the sharp turn, they seemed a bit confused and circled a few times before they started off on the new trail. Meanwhile, the rabbit had been watching the dogs the whole time. When the dogs made the turn, the rabbit hopped off, heading back up the hill toward Damon and Pat. It stopped next to a patch of tall grass and waited for the dogs again. It appears to me; the rabbits enjoy the hunt as much as the dogs and the men. They will make large circles, leading the dogs around until they get tired of the game and go hide in a brush pile. It is easy to tell that the dogs are enjoying themselves with their barks, cries and bays. When they get close to the rabbit, their vocalizations become louder and more frequent, and their white tipped tails are wagging continuously.

   My wife and I went on our way, changing out the other cameras and leaving the rabbit hunters to their sport. By the end of the day, Bruiser and Cassie were ready for a meal and a warm bed. The hunters had a good time, and several rabbits were well exercised.

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