h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I live in a city with lots of green and bushy roundabouts, and if you go out early in the morning, you can see cute and fluffy rabbits sitting around on them, munching carrots.

I lose sleep over these poor rabbits. How do they get off the roundabouts? I haven't seen any flattened ones, so perhaps they are resigned to their lives on roundabouts (a lifetime on Azkaban Gyratory System without Dementors), but I want to know whether they can dig under the roads. Any one know?

Thanks
Silvia

Well to be honest if they look healthy and happy then they probaly have decided it is an okay and safe place to live. I expect if it wasn't suitable they would find a way to cross road and search out a local park or something. Wildlife can be very adaptable, there was a very old film recently on TV where hares had settled into a life next to a military runway where heavy bombers regularly took off which they totally ignored, however if a human on foot approached they ran away so maybe the rabbits you are losing sleep over are actually doing very well and ignoring traffic around roundabout.
The hares liked the military runway as humans rarely went there, a bit like your roundabout by sounds of it!

But - where do the carrots come from?

I had thought about that, perhaps she meant it as a general term for they could be seen grazing. I have a field guide with limited information but they mainly eat grass and sometimes young trees so should be OK for food on a fairly large traffic island. I have a fairly small horse's field near me in a mainly urban area which has rabbits too when the surrounding area is certainly not rabbit country but they do ok and have seen young and I have seen more rabbits further down beside the busy duel carrigeway road in another small field wih horses too.

We have little black rabbits on our roundabouts, living alongside the usual grey/brown ones - escapees?? Never seen black wild rabbits.

there's been enough domestic rabbits escaped now that you do find crosses with domestic breeds in the wild. So could be escapees or several generations down the line.

As for carrots, you'd be amazed what you find growing on roundabouts. There was one somewhere that had cannabis growing on it!

Sure, carrots could grow on roundabouts - but not, I suspect, to any recognisable size if there are rabbits around!

Rabbits on a traffic island? What next? Snakes on a plane?

Nah...it'll never happen...

RF

Perhaps this could be material for a children´s book.

The 'Roundabout Rabbit' is a revolving version of the rampant rabbit if my research is correct, and the ones that live on military runways arrive by harecraft........apparently

A17616558

Wow, thank you all! Glad to hear the rabbits are probably happy where they were.

None of them were actually eating carrots, that was a bit of Bugs Bunny that slipped in there. None of them said, "What's up, Doc," either, but if they had I'd have ignored it (too busy concentrating on the road).

Interesting to hear what else has appeared on roundabouts - though today's candidate for worst roundabout ornamentation was a car emblazoned with a logo for a Car Loan company.

I'll wave at those happy brown rabbits - no blacks, definitely!

SW

Here there was a sign with a dead fish hanging across it. I´m not sure if it was a real fish or not, seeing as the birds didn´t seem to be eating from it. But I do wonder how it ended up there.

It swam.

Was it in Gloucestershire?


RF

Is it still there, Xan? Which roundabout?

(planning to go look...)

It was one out near Linero, by the place with the horses. It´s not there anymore. However today I did spot a moose made from wood placed in a roundabout. If you take the road from Mortenstårget past the big fancy school.