Wierd Animal Behavior

This morning while at work, I sat on the front stoop right at dawn and watched the strangest behavior between a crow and a cottontail rabbit. At first everything seemed pretty normal. The crow was hanging out in one part of the yard, throwing bits of grass and leaves around with it's beak. The rabbit was in another part of the yard, eating it's breakfast peacefully. It was actually rather pastoral. I sat and watched them, smoking my cigarrette and thinking how nice it was to work and live far enough out of town that I could just chill in the mornings and watch the local wildlife get breakfast. As the two critters were doing their thing, they drifted closer and closer together in the yard. What came next just about knocked me right over. The rabbit, with no warning, charged the crow! The crow, being no fool, took to wing and flew a short way across the yard and then landed again. Soon the rabbit was after it again! This went on for about 20 minutes, the two seemingly ignoring each other, yet drifting ever closer together until the rabbit had evidently had enough and would charge at the crow again. It looked for all the world like they were playing a game of tag and the rabbit was "it". After a while, the crow headed up into the trees and the rabbit disappeared into the brush at the other end of the yard. Now the yard is fairly large, probably .5 acre. At least the fenced in portion is. So after a few minutes the crow comes back down and begins doing whatever it is that crows do. All of a sudden that rabbit comes FLYING out of the brush, pelting across the yard as fast as it can to try and get that crow! The crow just kept on hop-flying just out of reach. I have never seen anything like it. I go to work again tonight, so it will be interesting to see if the behavior continues....