Photographing Rabbits

[nightshade]

My Hairdresser has these similar images of me, but she is too young
The worst thing about keeping company with cows is they stick their prehensile tongue up your trouser leg it is very hot and leaves an extremely viscous saliva, yeugh!

[pressld2]

I'd echo Jay's post on this one. A lot of wildlife is much more approachable when your in a car (or a pantomime cow costume!) than it is when you're on foot. These were taken this morning at Elmley Marshes in Kent, where visitors are encouraged to use their car as a hide on the entrance road...



The camera recorded a distance of 18.8 metres for the rabbit and 11.9 metres for the hare.

This is a good time of year for photographing rabbits as the youngsters can be very naive and let you get extremely close. I was out of the car for this one and just crawled up to him...



That one is 3.35 metres and he sat there good as gold while I changed my position to get a clearer view of him, but I prefer this one.

Walking past the RSPB office, there were lots of youngsters scampering for the undergrowth but one just sat there dozing. I've noticed this quite a few times with rabbits. Sometimes they go into a kind of trance and you can walk right up to them. Then they suddenly "wake up", realise you're there and go mental! I wasn't going to bother with this one as I'd already got plenty of shots but when he just carried on sitting there I thought, "why not?"



The sound of the shutter made him open his eyes wider and prick up his ears but he still just sat there...



A few weeks ago I was driving down to Stodmarsh when I spotted a rabbit by the side of the road. After I'd taken a few shots from the car he turned his back on me, so I parked up, got out and approached him on foot. This was taken with my 16-85mm lens set at 40mm and from a distance of 63 centimetres...



I was just going to push my luck and try for a shot at 16mm and half that distance when he nipped down his burrow. Just as well - I was lying on an ants nest.

Dave P.

[snake]

Hi Phil,

Rabbits can be photograph if you do the following.
Find a Rabbit earth, blend in with the environment, lay on the ground amongst the vegitation wearing your camoflauge clothing and cover yourself with a camo net.
Stay down wind, dont smoke or wear any perfume or deoderant, then wait.

Thats the hard way of doing it but it works,

The easy way as dave has mentioned is to use your car as a hide. Just park by an earth, take a flask of tea and wait. The best time is the first few hours of daylight or the last few hours in the afternoon.
Before you approach the earth, stay back and watch which holes the young rabbits are using then park near these holes.
Young rabbits seem to have very little fear, they will bolt down the hole as you drive up but will very quickly come back out and sit and watch you.
As long as you don't make any sudden movements you will get all the photo's you need.
The following pics were all taken out of my car window.







Good luck.

[Swift Fox]

I recently had some luck with photographing Rabbits and you need to be stealthy like a fox, you have to be silent and move extremely slowly as they will dart at the slightest noise or movement. The two pictures below were recent and since they were younger Rabbits they were less nervous and a bit easier to approach and that is the best place to start.

One of the most important things i've learnt with photographing wildlife (i've only really been doing it for 2 years) is to keep your ears and eyes open all the time and move around slowly making as little noise as you can, despite my senses being inferior to the subjects i've been trying to capture the above advice has helped me greatly.

Good luck!