Japanese Hare

This afternoon I went out to Rakutenchi area in search of the recently seen Japanese Paradise-flycatcher. I met Furuso-san who saw the bird earlier last week. She told me that she didn't hear the paradise-flycatcher for several days now, so probably it had already gone. I spent the whole afternoon waiting and searching but ended up not seeing any. Instead, I had quite a nice time with a surprisingly tame Japanese Hare. I first came across it while walking up hill. It was standing on the roadside and quickly jumped into the bush as I showed up. I decided to sit and wait for a while and after about 5 minutes, it popped up again from the bush!

Japanese Hare

Slowly coming out of the bush

It was a pretty busy path as several people came walking by and flushed the hare away, but after 3-5 minutes, it would come back out again and again. Later on, it seemed to recognise me as part of the scenery and came out to the road showing its full body. I then realised why it kept coming back to the same spot when it began eating some fresh leaves on the roadside. It looked so cute and funny when crunching the leaves in its mouth.

Then I knew the reason why it kept coming back, the food!

Japanese Hare carcass near my dorm

This was the first time for me seeing this cute animal alive. I didn't expect to be able to see it at all, especially with such a perfect view like this. I've come across a pretty freshly killed carcass once while walking down hill from my dorm and I thought that would be my only encounter. Back in Thailand, I've come across a Burmese Hare once, alive and well, but it was 5 in the morning, completely dark and the hare quickly jumped away as soon as my headlamp shone on it, so I kind of had that impression of how a wild hare should be like. Surprisingly, this Japanese counterpart proved me wrong.