Splitting Hares

Photo by Jo Sinclair

Two, four, eight... another loping dot soon took the tally to twenty-seven. A week ago I wrote about a luckless search for brown hares on white snow. Sunday started with a car-boot sale, a Waitrose trip and one bulging-eyed hare on the new Trumpington Meadows development as I walked to Byron's Pool. It seemed like a good omen for the day ahead, and for the future of the country park being carved into the land around the Barratt Homes. The local Wildlife Trust will have a base at the development and are in the middle of landscaping meadows and river.

On Sunday afternoon I trecked towards the Roman Road. I didn't get far in the rain before having to take cramped and spikey shelter under an ash with flask and cake.

I spotted brown clods of earth, brown clods of partridge, and brown clods of hare among the low green wheat. Scanning just four of the fields through blurred binoculars I counted twenty-seven in the arable expanse surrounding me. They had eyes only for each other as I skirted the hedge alongside the track so I got my camera out, but the wind was driving the rain straight at me as I wobbled about with my umbrella. Unfortunately my dog had better balance and focus; I caught her out of the corner of my eye slowly advancing, one paw raised. It was only then, when I shouted 'stay' that four hares saw us and legged it just out of shot and the weather was so bad I decided to call it a day.