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    RSPB Spotlight Hares
    RSPB Spotlight Hares
    RSPB Spotlight Hares
    Ebook198 pages1 hour

    RSPB Spotlight Hares

    By Nancy Jennings

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    About this ebook

    Spotlight: Hares is packed with eye-catching, informative colour photos, and features succinct and detailed text written by a knowledgeable naturalist.

    With their wild glare, swift turn of foot and secretive nature, hares are the rabbit's mysterious and untameable cousin. Always a thrilling wildlife spot, the hare has long been a symbol of Britain's sweeping, open countryside. Hares have also been associated with human culture and folklore for many centuries - their associations with spring can be traced back to the druids.

    Focussing on our two British species, the Brown Hare (found throughout the UK and widely distributed in Europe and Asia) and its more northerly relative the Mountain Hare (found in Scotland, Ireland, Scandinavia and the Russian Federation), RSPB Spotlight Hares offers exciting and up-to-date information on these incredible lagomorphs, with chapters covering their biology, evolution, natural history, behaviour, including courtship rituals, and ecology. Information on some of the more charismatic species of hare found elsewhere in the world and on hares' other relatives, the rabbits and pikas, is also provided.

    The author discusses in detail Hares' interactions with humans, in agriculture, habitat management, shooting and hunting, as well as in more culinary matters, and reveals why this almost mythical animal of hill and meadow is so sensitive to the changes we make to age-old farming landscapes. The presence and significance of hares in our culture is also discussed, including the Easter hare, Lewis Carroll's mad March hare, and hares as shape-changers. Nancy Jennings also offers useful tips on where and how to see hares for yourself in the wild.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJun 1, 2017
    ISBN9781472933652
    RSPB Spotlight Hares
    Author

    Nancy Jennings

    Nancy Jennings is a biologist specialising in mammals. After gaining her PhD from the University of Bristol, Nancy researched bats, shrews, hares, dolphins, seals, moths, and fish. She now provides editorial support to biologists and is the managing editor of the scientific journal Mammal Review.

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      Book preview

      RSPB Spotlight Hares - Nancy Jennings

      For all items sold, Bloomsbury Publishing will donate a minimum of 2% of the publisher’s receipts from sales of licensed titles to RSPB Sales Ltd, the trading subsidiary of the RSPB. Subsequent sellers of this book are not commercial participators for the purpose of Part II of the Charities Act 1992.

      Contents

      Meet the Hares

      Evolution and Adaptations

      Relatives Around the World

      The Lives of Hares

      Breeding Machines

      Growing Up Fast

      Eat or Be Eaten

      Conservation of Hares

      Humans and Hares

      Folklore and Art

      How to See Hares

      Glossary

      Further Reading and Resources

      Image Credits

      Acknowledgements

      Brown Hares have oversized ears, large eyes, and long, sensitive whiskers: adaptations for avoiding predators.

      Meet the Hares

      Hares, though not often seen, are characteristic animals that are known and loved by many. There is something magical about hares – they feature in folklore, art, children’s books and poetry. The hare is a symbol of fertility, resurrection and immortality, perhaps because it has the ability to pop up unexpectedly as though suddenly born or reborn, appearing out of nowhere, only to disappear from view by sprinting away.

      Only a handful of our mammal species are familiar to most of us, and not many people are lucky enough to see wild mammals regularly. Depending on where you live, you might see Foxes, squirrels, rats, mice, deer, bats and Rabbits. Though they are more rarely seen, hares are among our most distinctive mammals. Some might describe them as ungainly, long-legged rabbit-like animals with oversized ears. Hares are similar to Rabbits, but they are bigger and faster, and also more timid, elusive and elegant than the much more familiar Rabbits. The hare is an unusual species in that it breeds quickly and does not live long, but is relatively large (see Speedy lifestyles). It is also a game animal and food source that is eaten by humans and other animals (see Eat or Be Eaten). In some parts of the world, hares are invasive pests, causing harm to fragile ecosystems (see Conservation of Hares). In others, the conservation of hares presents a paradox: why are hares threatened by intensive farming, though they thrive in arable areas?

      Arable fields provide food and shelter for hares, while field margins allow them to add diversity to their diet.

      The ‘common hare’, or Brown Hare, as depicted by the artist A. Thorburn in British Mammals, published in 1920.

      A Mountain Hare in its winter coat is well camouflaged in snow. Illustration by A. Thorburn, British Mammals, 1920.

      Two (or more) British species

      Two species of hare are widespread in Europe: the Brown (or European) Hare and the Mountain Hare. There are 15 European subspecies of Mountain Hare. The Mountain Hares in the British Isles belong to two subspecies: one is found in Scotland and the Peak District; the other is found in Ireland, is called the Irish Hare and may in fact be a separate species. There are also at least 16 subspecies of Brown Hare, which differ in colour, size, and skull and tooth shape, but their relationships and distributions are still being clarified by scientists. This book focusses on the Brown Hare, the Scottish Mountain Hare and the Irish Hare. These species are similar enough to be difficult to identify when seen in isolation but, as they are found in different areas and habitats, you are unlikely to confuse them. If you were to see two of these hares side by side – which could happen only with a great deal of luck or skill, and only in a handful of locations – you could tell them apart easily enough with careful observation.

      left: The Brown Hare is distinctly reddish-brown. In summer, the Mountain Hare (right) is similar in colour, but its winter coat may be partly or entirely white. This individual, photographed in spring, is moulting to become brown again.

      The Brown Hare

      The long back legs of Brown Hares allow them to move swiftly.

      The Brown Hare (Lepus europaeus), though fairly common on farmland in Europe, is tricky to see because it is secretive, elusive and nocturnal or crepuscular. Adult Brown Hares in England weigh on average 3.5kg (7¾lb), as much as a domestic cat, and are about 55cm (22in) long from nose to tail. Their back feet are very large, at about 15cm (6in) long. The back legs are much longer and larger than their front legs; as a result, hares have a peculiar galloping gait, in which the front feet land first and the hind feet pass outside the front feet and land in front of them. The ears appear to be oversized at about 10cm (4in) long. If you fold the ears of a Brown Hare forward, over the top of its nose, the ears stick out a little beyond the tip of the nose. This is not the case with a European Rabbit, or even with an Irish or Mountain Hare. What immediately springs to mind, of course, is the astonishing fact that Bugs Bunny is actually a hare!

      Bugs Bunny’s long ears and limbs make him look more like a hare or a jackrabbit than a rabbit.

      Brown Hares live their whole lives above ground, creating forms or seats (depressions in the ground or vegetation) to shelter in during the day. They rely on speed to escape from their main natural enemy, the Red Fox, and from other predators, as hares do not use burrows. Brown Hares are mainly solitary, though they come together to mate and sometimes to feed. During the mating season, several potential suitors (males, also called bucks) follow a female (or doe) around, and females who are not ready to mate ‘box’ the males, simultaneously pushing them away and testing their strength.

      Each hair in the fur of Brown Hare has bands of several colours, giving the animal a brindled appearance.

      Though Brown Hares may look patchy and scruffy when they moult (in spring and autumn), their coats otherwise change little over their lives. They are born with fur very close in colour to the adult coat and their summer and winter coats look similar. When you glimpse a Brown Hare, especially in sunlight, the most striking identification feature is its colour. It is distinctly reddish brown on the back, though the red is more patchy and more brindled or grizzled than the red of a Fox, because each individual hair is banded in different colours along its length. The coat becomes yellower on the flanks, on the sides of the face and on the inner limbs. The belly is creamy white; the tail white with black on top. Wild European Rabbits, on the other hand, appear much more even in colour, and are more greyish brown than reddish brown. There are grey, black, white and sandy-coloured forms of the Brown Hare, but they are very rare.

      A Brown Hare keeping watch from its form. From a distance, it can resemble a clump of mud.

      In sunlight, Brown Hares usually settle in their forms, where they are hard to spot as they are well camouflaged and motionless. Try scanning a field with binoculars, looking for something that resembles a lump of manure or mud – it might turn out to be a hare. Once you spot a hare in its form, you may be able to approach quite closely and watch it sink gradually lower and lower into the ground, until you get so close that the hare finally decides to run for it. Then you will see the back end of the hare disappearing very quickly and, if you can find it, you may see the still warm and cosy-looking form. Usually the form provides the hare with a good view over any open areas. If you watch Brown

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