Mad as a March Hare

When I first moved here to the high fells of Country Durham, I was pleased to discover that I was in hare habitat. While I had seen Hares before, they were illusive and often at a distance. The way they hug the ground to hide in hollows helps them disappear. Bringing to my mind the Celtic and magical myths of folk tales.

It was the myth of the mad march hare that got me confused last year as this was happening in February. My lack of skill watching Hares and the cold made trying to discover the puzzles much harder. Therefore I needed to develop my stalking skills and try to discover where the hares territories were. As here any wind below forty miles an hour is considered just a gentle breeze here, the direction of approach would often involve taking long walks well past these territories then doubling back.

Many of the attempts to observe were fruitless or very brief. This was until one day the observation of a buzzard alerted me to something near the site that had proved to be most fruitful. I then went a couple of days latter. Being May it turned out to be a delightful day and I stretched my legs among the wild flowers. I was allowing my mind to wander and nearly walked into the scrape where the leverets were laying out in the sun. I retreated to a point near a copse of trees. The mother was very close and must have been hiding too as she just popped up and I could not have missed her approaching as the grass and heather was far to short to have missed her movements.

Then the most dramatic part of the observations happened, a large bird of prey swooped down. It was targeting one of the young hares, and I thought it would get one but the mother reared up and boxed the bird. I think it just nudged the bird off taking one of the four young, so it missed a meal.

I am well aware that the natural world is lacking sentiment and there is a natural food chain, but I was really pleased that this juvenile Golden Eagle did not get a meal that day. As it was wearing tresses, it was a captive Eagle that someone was using for hunting. It flew off with empty talons and I could not spot where the falconer was. I have not seen the bird since. Also as the scrape was vacated days latter, I am guessing the mother moved her litter. While it was more likely because of the bird, I was worried that I had caused some disturbance myself.

It was not until the autumn that I started seeing hares again. I most of all wanted to work out where the females were resident. As the female is larger it is possible to tell the difference, but there appeared to be many more males about. Reading about hares told me that this is quite normal.

As last winter had been quite hard with plenty of snow, my initial spotting of hares had been quite easy. This time it was a bit more tricky, but I am learning. Therefore luck has been playing a major part in this too. As I was out watching a flock of Lapwings when I started to spot the start of the mating activity. This is where myth has been blurring the facts. As when I was a child, it was believed that the boxing behaviour was males fighting over females. When in fact it is the female fighting off unsuitable males, or over amorous males before she is ready to mate. So last year when I saw males boxing too, I was more than puzzled by this. As I said size distinguishes the males from the larger females. Also last year it was happening in February a good month before it was supposed to be happening.

By reading deeper than the myths and casual observations, I discover that most of the mating activity actually starts in February and it is normally only the un-mated males that are left fighting, boxing. Therefore while the classic boxing behaviour is the females fighting off males, the males do box too.

It was only because I had seen behaviour that did not match the facts that are often repeated on television and in books that I discovered the truth of the behaviour. At one point I had actually thought I might have discovered behaviour that had not been previously observed, but others had already seen and recorded it. The problem is the myths persist.

The brown hare is far less numerous than it once was, so I am genuinely lucky to have seen these animals at all. To have seen them enough and for such prolonged periods to have been puzzled by the behaviour though was a real privilege.