I went for a run today — and it was definitely hot out there! About 3 miles in, I was running under a commuter rail train overpass, and found a tiny baby bunny pressed up against the stone wall. Look how small he is!
He was at the lowest part of the street, where it dips down beneath the train overpass, before the road starts heading back up. I have no idea how he got there — I can only imagine that he might have fallen from the wooded area next to the train tracks and landed on the street below. I’m sure that he was terrified, he wasn’t moving when I stopped, just his little nose was going. Yes, I stopped and talked to him, which probably scared him even more.
Should I have done something to help him? Sure, I could have picked him up and carried him back to a grassy area, but he probably would have bit me and then I would have dropped him and then he would have run out into oncoming traffic and that just wouldn’t have a been a good outcome for anyone. I did think about taking my sneaker off and carrying him back to my house in my shoe. But even if he stayed in my shoe and didn’t have a heart attack from traveling in a smelly running sneaker, what would I do with him when I got home? Bring him in the house?? Of course that’s what I wanted to do, but my husband would surely have me committed.
I didn’t have any water or food to give him (maybe I will start carrying carrots and lettuce from my garden in my pockets…) so I told him to be careful and left him there. I thought about getting in my car and driving over there to check on him later, but with my luck he’d recognize me and dart out into the street to get away from me, and that just wouldn’t end well. So I just hope that he listened when I told him to be careful, and that he found the strength to hop a little ways up the sidewalk until he found the woods again.
Notes from a Self Quarantine 