Species spotlight: brown hare
In March, winter begins to come to a close and we take our tender first steps step into spring. As we creep into the season, there is a slow encroachment of bursting life. Week by week more light casts on our lands, more species of bird join the chorus and more plants erupt from the earth. But this gradual transition is too leisurely for some: some have to shift up a gear and overtake the traffic at rapid pace. The brown hare has no patience in this regard and have no qualms about speeding straight into spring!
Brown hares are truly a soul staple of British countryside imagery at the cusp of spring. I personally love the more frequent sightings of them at Caerlaverock in March. Their rich reddish brown coat, elongated ears and agile movements have provided inspiration for many an artist, capturing them in the various grasslands in which they roam. One behaviour that is particularly enthralling to the public are the bouts of hare martial arts, when they duel it out till the opposing hare submits. This is a well-known breeding behaviour during March, although it is commonly mistaken for males fighting each other for dominance. However, the behaviour actually occurs when a female becomes sick and tired of a male pestering her to mate, leading to a squabble with grass and fur raining down upon their battle.
Although we are infatuated with these small beasts today, once upon a time these hares struck a great sense of superstition throughout our isles. There were some instances where they were viewed as a bad omens across the globe. Legends of white hares arose stating that when a pure hearted lover is betrayed by their partner, they are reincarnated as a white hare. The hare then stalks the partner either causing anguish for the individual or to possibly save them from a fatal accident in the future. Other lore suggests links to the underworld and people with the ability to morph into hares! Of course we have notable mentions in literature - the classic example being the March Hare from Alice in Wonderland, named as such as they seem to lose their senses in March with their scrappy antics while zooming across the fields at rapid pace. More contemporary works have wrote them in as bad omens in horror settings, such has the novel Withered Hill by David Barnett.
With the varied mysticism around these creatures, it is best to see them in the flesh and form your own superstitions of the hare. At WWT Caerlaverock now we are into March they can be seen quite regularly around are fields and even racing up the paths!
Words by Charlie McGrath
Feature image of hare by Marianne Nicholson
