Eastern Cottontail
A compact rabbit that freezes into invisibility, then bounds for dense cover with its cotton-white tail flashing.
Artwork inspired by N. C. Wyeth
Eastern cottontails use brush piles, shrubby borders, weedy lots, gardens, and young forest rather than deep unbroken woods. They browse grasses and herbs in warm seasons and shift toward bark, twigs, and buds during winter.
They do not dig elaborate warrens. Instead, females make shallow grass-lined nests and cover nursing young between brief visits. A nest discovered in a lawn is usually best protected in place rather than moved.
- Shelter
- Dense edge cover
- Young
- Shallow hidden nest
- Defense
- Freeze then sprint
Quick guide
- First clue
- Cotton-white tail
- Confirm with
- Brown grizzled coat; context: Shallow hidden nest
Read Eastern Cottontail in four field decisions
- Start with one clue
- Use “Cotton-white tail” as a hypothesis, not a conclusion.
- Check a second feature
- Next, seek “Brown grizzled coat”.
- Record habitat and season
- Treat “Shallow hidden nest” as supporting evidence, not proof by itself.
- Finish without disturbance
- Observe Eastern Cottontail from a position that leaves its movement and surrounding habitat unchanged.
Good to know
Leave Eastern Cottontail unidentified when “Cotton-white tail” and “Brown grizzled coat” cannot both be documented; an explicit uncertainty is more useful than a forced match.
Notice these
- Cotton-white tail
- Brown grizzled coat
- Large hind feet
- Dark-edged ears