How the Easter Bunny got the eggs

The habitat of the brown hare was originally the broad, often marshy plain where the rivers meandered in wide loops through alluvial forests and reed meadows. These open spaces, which have only been created by the clearing of the forest, used to be home to many ground-nesting birds: lapwings, curlews, partridges, quails… and all these birds laid their eggs in simple ground nests mainly on Easter – clutches markedly different from the one-color chicken eggs.

And at the same time, dozens of hares pounded in these meadows: during their mating games, the hares run wild in groups, chasing each other and standing on their hind legs like boxers in a duel. So they beat each other with their front legs for minutes at a time – males against males in a rivalry fight, but also females against males. Namely when a rabbit wants to know if a possible pursuer who is on her heels is suitable as a father for her future offspring. Is he persistent and persistent? Is he strong in battle? How can he take their blows? does he really want that?

An hours-long, lively and colorful bustle that was commonplace in earlier centuries on our meadows and fields in the lowlands. It’s even been found that rabbits need that relentless banging and boxing matches for ovulation to happen in the first place…

Item, back to Easter Eggs: Match! Striking hare dances and the colorful eggs of ground-nesting birds that you could find and then eat. Birds that brood on the ground flee from their talons when one approaches, and the eggs then lie there open and unprotected, though usually well hidden… What could be more obvious than for the children to hunt for eggs at Easter ( “Eierlesen”) and tell them that the rabbits have painted and hidden them?

This Easter story also has a sad touch. You have to write them in the past tense, because all the many birds that nest on the ground, the curlews, partridges, quails or lapwings are no longer there or only sporadically. They all had to give way to intensive agricultural use with their meliorations and their machines – and the many rabbits in the fields only exist in history …