I saw a rabbit chasing a large stoat around the garden this morning. He was hot on the stoat’s tail, and looking intent on doing some damage! The stoat twisted and turned a few times, and ran around a tree, but the rabbit matched his every move. When the stoat eventually broke free the rabbit charged at it. However, the stoat took to the long grass, and the rabbit came back to the edge of the open ground and sat with his nose trembling.

I’ve seen half a dozen baby rabbits in that area over the past few days, so presumably the adult rabbit was protecting them.

Is this a common thing to happen?

I wonder what would have happened if the rabbit had ‘caught’ the stoat…

Also, would a stoat pursue a rabbit into its burrow and kill it there? I’m just wondering if the baby rabbits would be ‘safe’ even if they managed to take cover.

Don’t know. But I have seen a stoat (weasel? Like I’d know the difference) dragging a dead rabbit back to it’s young. Rabbit was at least twice the size of the stoat.

Was it this guy….

It might have been. He certainly looked like he was hopping mad!

A few years back I spotted a stoat popping its head out of a rabbit hole. Waited for a bit and it kept sticking its head out, having a quick look and darting back down. Eventually a largish rabbit came along and sniffed the hole, backed away with a weird movement and sat on (what I think was) her haunches. A few other rabbits gathered around this hole obviously wise to what was going down, which was the young being eaten by the stoat.

After a short time a few little rabbits returned with what can only be described as a hard-looking mutha of a rabbit, not too dissimilar to that nasty shit in Watership Down. Anyway, he (I assumed) stood by the hole surrounded by quite a few varying sizes of rabbits gathered in a semi circle. The stoat popped its head up again but this time he stayed there. The hard bastard rabbit took on a challenging pose – head right down like a bull about to charge, bent at the legs, getting ready to pounce or just tooth-ram the hapless stoat.

The stoat was a wily bugger, though, and was having none of it. He jumped out of the hole and straight at the big’un; the crowd parting like Moses at the Red Sea with the big bugger leaping right over the lightning fast stoat. Epic stand off but sadly before I owned a camera.

Sadly the mother sat by the hole all evening look pretty cut up about the whole thing.

I once watched a buzzard trying to get off the ground with a thrashing little bunny in its claws while a bunch of rabbits took turns at charging in and jumping at it. It eventually gave up and flew off

Loddrik has it – was the bunny white? Did you soil your armour?