Bog Myrtle & Peat

Heading out and about this morning in the miserable sleet, I spotted four familiar brown shapes in a stock field behind the house. Pulling the car to a standstill, I wound down the window and peered at them. Last spring was the first time I have ever seen boxing hares, and it is not a spectacle that you forget in a hurry.

The hares sat in pairs, thirty yards apart. The female in each pair was crouched low down to the turf while the male preened and made a great show of enjoying nibbling the grass. Bit by bit, he would creep closer and closer to the female. The closer he got, the more irritable she became, until she leapt into the air and chased him away. They ran in great loops, drawing in other hares so that it sometimes seemed that I was watching a horse race. Every now and again, he would turn round to box at her, and only after a great deal of bounding and scampering, peace would be restored again.

The simple routine was repeated again and again, and the same males never seemed to get tired of winding each other up. It was extremely amusing to watch, and if a massive milk tanker hadn’t swept around the blind corner in front of me after half an hour, I would have stayed all morning. As it was, I was forced to reverse three hundred yards to the nearest gate to let the tanker pass, and when I got back, they had wandered away over the brow of the hill.

It is still early days for boxing, and I look forward to seeing even more exciting displays as the spring progresses.