The Urban Pantheist

When eastern cottontails browse on the twigs of the alien invasive shrub buckthorn, certain chemicals enter their urine. The urine of rabbits is dilute brown to orange, even when tainted by buckthorn. But if that buckthorned urine is then acted on by sunlight, the color changes to blue. If that urine is suspended in the snow, then we get to enjoy this bizarre phenomenon.

A weird crow call drew me out from my office. Just outside, a red tail was getting harassed by a single crow and few songbirds. This grackle was the most persistent of the mob.

( many more creatures, in randomish order )

At my work, there is a recurring report from people tracking animals in the snow; a bizarre and lurid claim of blue rabbit urine. After six winters there, I have finally witnessed this first hand. Before seeing the blue stain on the snow myself, I was frankly skeptical, and assumed that people were seeing something else, and mistaking it for blue rabbit urine.

A quick search turns up one article on the phenomenon--posted by an "urban field ecologist," no less--from the previous winter. You can read it here: http://nuthatch.typepad.com/ba/2005/12/blue_smurf_pee_.html Another reference to this, with anecdotal experimental information is here: http://www.ont-woodlot-assoc.org/sw_nonfibre_redskies.html

The gist of it, is this: Our native rabbits (the eastern cottontail) have been browsing on an alien shrub (European buckthorn). The buckthorn contains a chemical that passes out with the urine, which comes out yellowish to brownish, but after exposure to sunlight, turns a lovely blue color. This effect is visible, of course, because the urine in question is suspended in snow. You would think that the cottontails are eating the berries of the buckthorn, because they are purplish, but according to the second reference above, the effect occurs after the rabbits eat other parts of the plant. Buckthorn holds its leaves long after most native deciduous plants, and in winter cottontails subsist largely on bark and twigs. The second reference also emphasizes that buckthorn is not a favored browse plant of North American herbivores, and that they have to be driven to feed on it out of desperation. I'm not sure about that; my workplace has enough Norway maple saplings to sustain a cottontail factory farm.

So, without further ado (okay, one doo) here is some blue rabbit urine: