A very dark night

Colster

Active Member
Out lamping last night with a mate on a farm where the rabbit numbers have been dwindling (someone keeps shooting them ;)) and my mate tells me of a black rabbit he saw on this farm a couple of months ago.

I've only once seen a black rabbit and it was while stalking so never had a shot at one.

For the first couple of fields, I drove and my mate was using the HMR, not many rabbits about but I was keen to evaluate the scope on the rifle (a Zieler 3-9x56). Well, early results were very good with every rabbit that presented a shot, dropping to the little HMR round.

We moved over onto another field and swapped over, so I took the gun. We had literally just pulled onto the field when my mate cries,"Fox!". Now, we've shot this farm between us for over 2 years and neither of us have ever seen any sign of foxes, so I jumped out and checked through the scope that it was indeed old Reynard and not some poor pensioner's Sheltie out for an evening stroll.

Sure enough, a youngish Vixen which punished me for my moment of hesitation by legging it into the hedge, just as I was about to squeeze the trigger.

While cursing my bad luck we continued down the field when the lamp fell across a small dark shape sitting out in the field, "It's him, the Black Rabbit!"

This time, I could track it across the field and the moment it stopped, send it some V-Max for Tea.

I hadn't got my phone with me so had to wait until this morning to get a pic (after it had had a night in the fridge).

I had considered selling the Zieler but think I have to keep it now.

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well done buddy now get back up there and slap old charlie. on a shoot where i go lamping we get a few black rabbits ( we think that there desendants of a tame escapey ) but we leave them just to see how many we can get running about but i must admit i wouldnt mind bagging one just to see what they look like up close
 
Hi Colster, We have on occassion seen black rabbits here in the Midlands. the locals refer to them as "Parsons". I read somewhere that they were throwbacks to the days when we had warrens. The warreners kept grey,black and the more common brown rabbit for meat and fur.Be interesting to do a bit of research to see if there were any warrens in your area in the past.
Cheers High seat.
 
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