Frost Dancers is about a blue mountain hare named Skelter whose plucked from his highland mountains and forced to run a hare coursing event. He escapes and struggles to make do with finding a new community for himself among field hares. He briefly stays in a rabbit warren and we're treated to the prejudices and differences a lot of humans wouldn't realise were there. A coworker of mine accused me of lying that hares were even different than rabbits.Frost Dancers wasn't judgmental or preachy that humans eat hares but rather the cruel way it is done for sport. Kilworth devoted equal time to other animals such as hedgehogs, stoats, otters and the hares adversary, Bubba. Bubba is described in the afterward as a harpy eagle.
The thing that came to my mind is Bubba was almost lucky to make it out alive after destroying the local population.
In Florida there is a huge problem with non native pythons and baracudas eating our local alligators. It wasn't fair that his selfish and cruel "mother" took him from his home and plucked him into a country where he didn't belong. People should have more responsibility not to introduce animals to habitats they aren't suited for.
Luckily for him he wasn't breeding or there'd be a rabbit issue like in Australia or when the parrots were killed in South Carolina.
I felt for poor Bubba while sympathising with Skelter and his friends.
The rabbits and Skelter himself moved from their original habitats but poor Bubba was the only one of his kind. He felt he was half man and half bird.
Frost Dancers is an entertaining but thoughtful book.
I enjoyed Beak of the Moon by Philip Temple but I appreciated that Kilworth did not impose human morality on these characters. He respected their cultures without an agenda. When he did have one it wasn't done in a heavy handed way.