Bog Myrtle & Peat

When I first started to write this blog, I intended it to look at managing an upland rough shoot throughout the year. As time has gone by, the subject matter has gravitated towards black grouse and habitat management. I make no apology for this, since I find those subjects most interesting, and limited as a professional journalist by editors and an expectant reading public, I reserve the right to bang on about anything I want on my own personal side project.

Now and again, I am fascinated by something new and different which, while I feel it belongs to the spirit of the original project, looks decidedly out of place in the blog in its current form. Bear with me, then, if the following information is of no interest whatsoever.

I travelled to Ireland on Friday morning. Having visited Northern Ireland two or three times in the past, either to see the Game Fair at Moira Demesne or visit friends, I didn’t find the scenery wholly astonishing, but landing in Dublin airport introduced me to one of the most unusual and unexpected animals I have ever seen.

When the animators behind CGI films attempt to imitate human movement, they often struggle to recreate it satisfactorily. Technically, their work is perfect, but we humans are the ultimate critics of our own behaviour  and we always notice that something is not quite right. We know how we move, and while we can’t always explain why, we know we are looking at a digitally animated human being. It is quite unsettling, because things are not as they should be.

I had a similar feeling as I drove out of Dublin on Friday morning and noticed a rabbit feeding in the grass. As the car moved along the road, the rabbit moved and I began to feel uncomfortable. I have spent so long watching rabbits and hares that I instantly knew that something was wrong with this one. It was a uniform biscuit brown with a large puffy white tail. Short ears and a roly-poly face were like a rabbit’s, but there were no fine markings around the eyes; no black eyebrow or angular cheek. As it stood up, it revealed long legs like a tiny muntjac deer and it occurred to me that I was looking at a hare, but the ears were short and round and only tipped with black at the extreme ends. It walked and I was convinced that I was looking at a hare, but then it stopped and it became a rabbit again. Something was seriously wrong.

It was only when I got home that I learned that Irish hares are a subtly different species to brown hares, which were introduced to the British mainland by the Romans and Normans. Lepus timidus hibernicus is a species unique to Ireland, related more to blue (or mountain hares) than anything else. I had no idea whatsoever, but I feel very lucky that this one thrust itself into my line of sight.