Minnesota’s cottontail records trace brushy edges from Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge to the prairie and cropland landscape around Blue Mounds State Park in the southwest. Records reaching Chippewa National Forest show cottontails using openings in the northern forest transition as well as southern hedgerows and suburban cover.
Cottontails are most active at dawn and dusk, freezing in place in a shallow nest-like form when a predator passes rather than bolting early. They eat grasses, clover, and other soft plants through the growing season and switch to twigs and bark once snow covers the ground, a shift that lets them hold the same patch of brushy edge through a Minnesota winter.
Records climb steeply from April through July, matching a breeding season fast enough that a female can be pregnant again within hours of giving birth. That spring and summer surge in reports lines up with more young rabbits moving around in the open, not necessarily more total cottontails.
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