Bog Myrtle & Peat

I had such a fine time watching the goshawk flying after blue hares last week that when I was invited back on a nicer day, I was thrilled to bits. Although the forecast promised a fair mixture of cloud and sunshine up in the hills, it was obvious that rain was going to prevail once again as I pulled the car up to a standstill behind Keith’s, high up on the moor.

Within a hundred yards, we had struck gold once again. Assisted by Keith’s little cocker spaniel fern, we beat out an area of old, rank heather. Like a huge, distorted teddy bear, a grand old hare in pure white pelage burst out of the long undergrowth and sprinted into the open. Keith had explained how hares in the Angus glens are used to dealing with birds of prey since they are regularly hunted by wild eagles, but these hares were a great deal less savvy. It ran into the open, then paused as the goshawk darted towards it. Only at the very last moment did it think to move, but by that point it was too late. The hawk ploughed into it, sending both hare and bird into an uncomfortable cartwheel. In seconds it was over.

The hills were soaking wet and rang to the calls of the grouse cocks as we wandered on down the hill, fern pushing ahead and leaving no stalk of heather unturned. Even since last week, the hares have changed colour. The majority are now white, although one or two had ginger heads or faded brown front ends. The goshawk appeared not to care what colour they were, and she tumbled them over, one after the other. When we caught one of this year’s young after a cracking chase of more than a hundred yards, she pinned it to the ground and began tufting its fur with tremendous satisfaction. By comparison to the older hares, the young one was almost pure brown and not much larger than a rabbit.

As a grand finale, fern bolted a hare from a stand of old heather and then chased it as it lolloped away down a recently mowed firebreak. The goshawk took off from the fist like lightning, and it was only when you saw her in comparison to the racing spaniel that you realised quite how fast she was flying. She overtook it with a single flap, racing ahead to bind into the spine of the hare, tumbling into the springy twigs of heather with a concentrated thump.

After two hours, we had taken five hares and I was elected to carry them back to the car. Given that the first hare alone weighed around 7lbs, I could well have been hauling just less than 30lbs of meat in a backpack up an extremely steep hill. Fern flushed a fantastic woodcock in the final few yards to the car, but the goshawk has become so used to ignoring grouse on the hill that she scarcely even acknowledged the flying target.

Once home with the hares, I skinned the huge white one and now have plans to use its fur to line a hat. There can’t be many blue hare hats in the country, and it will certainly be a fine way to remember two thrilling days with a goshawk.