I have always assumed that the ones I saw in the canoe country were snowshoe hares.  But since I have never been there in the winter to see them when they are white, I suppose I could be assuming with no basis for the assumption.  But the ones up north sure do have BIG FEET!!

Well ah larned a lot about them hares. That they are good swimmers too.
That's a great story Jimbo! 
It could be that the adult eagle I saw was one of the ones you helped out.
That campsite was nice, and had a great canoe garage.

Quote:


  Not only are they good swimmers, those big hind feet on both rabbits/hares are not just for hopping?

My Grandfather on my Mother's side was a Irish immigrant. He was the greens-keeper for a big golf course just outside Detroit in the late 20's-30's.

My Grandparents kept rabbits they used for food.
The rabbits ran around their compound like free range chickens.

The neighbor next store had hunting dogs, Beagles to be exact. He let them run wild and they often went after the rabbits and other wild animals that lived on the golf course grounds.

My Grandfather warned the guy many times, threatening to shoot his dogs if they killed his rabbits.

One day won of his beagles came into the yard and went after a big male rabbit. The rabbit couldn't get to a safe space so it jumped into the small farm pond to escape the beagle.

Beagle jumps in pond in hot pursuit. By then my Grandmother is screaming for my Grandfather to shoot the beagle but he only had a shotgun and was afraid he hit the rabbit too! 

By then the neighbor had come over threatening my
Grandfather IF he shot his precious hunting dog.

Well things changed dramatically when that rabbit turned on that beagle, grabbed the dog with his front paws and using those big hind feet, DISEMBOWELED that poor dog in a few seconds.

  The beagles owner stood there in stunned silence!  They fished the dog out of pond and that was the last time those hunting dogs EVER ran loose again.

  Don't mess with BUG'S 

 

That's a heckuva story, ST!  Perhaps a good-sized hare might have a chance against an eagle... though I kind of doubt it.

Thirty years ago my father-in-law, recently widowed, drove his super-van up into snow-covered Alaska in the Springtime.  It was a kind of self-reflective, get-away-from-it all trip. One bright morning, he pulled his van to the side of the lonely county highway to videotape a red fox pouncing into deep snow, apparently going after a vole or some other varmint.  When you watch his film footage, you're following the antics of this bright red fox against the pure white snow when suddenly a large dark shadow appears beside the fox.  In the very next moment, a huge eagle swoops out of the clear blue sky, grabs the fox with both sets of talons, carries him ever upward.  The fox is fighting like hell.  My father-in-law tries to film the ascent and struggle but can only capture so much from the driver's side of the van before the view is cut off by the top of the passenger side window.  The camera is still running.  He considers jumping out of the van to regain the picture but, before he can, the fox suddenly comes back into view, plummeting like a red bomb, into a deep patch of snow.  My father-in-law once again trains the camera on the fox.  Now the critter is off to the races, a banshee bolting for the cover of the woods.  The eagle makes one more swoop but misses.  The fox narrowly escapes having a very bad day by diving into the brush.

It's a heckuva video.  Hares, fox, and similarly-sized animals up in that wilderness will do well when they keep one eye skyward much of the time.

Me?  As tough as he might be, I don't think I would want to be in a hare's snowshoe's when Mr. Eagle shows up.

Jimbo   

ST,

It remains one of my great hopes that we can make that campfire happen some year soon.  I know a bunch of folks on this forum who would make time to join such a rendezvous.

Given my imminent relocation south to the swamps of Florida, my next several months are pretty much spoken for.  That and with the border closed, pretty much all I will be able to do is "think" about Canadian campfires.  Beginning in 2022, however, I should be able to do something about it.

We may be getting old and rickety but most of us have at least a few good years of wilderness canoe travel left.  If we bring enough Geritol, stool softener, oatmeal, and Prevagen, we should be able to get by.

Later,

Jimbo