Wakelam's wildlife: mad March hares, natural entertainers

  • Published
  • By Judith Wakelam
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  March is a month that sees a lot happening in the natural world. And, when I think of March, I immediately think of boxing hares!

We get the saying, "Mad as a March hare" from the fact that the female will "box" with a male if she is not ready to accept his advances. When out and about, keep your eyes open for them on the arable fields of East Anglia. This part of the country has good numbers of brown hares but it's not so in many parts of the country.

Although they occur all over Britain, in lots of areas, their numbers are low due to loss of suitable habitat caused by changes in farming practices, building development, disease and hunting.

The European, or brown hare, Lepus europaeus, is somewhat like a rabbit to look at but twice the size, with long black-tipped ears. It has, as its name implies, soft reddish brown fur with white underneath and a black and white tail.

Hares prefer open country and observing them is best done in the early morning and late evening, when they are more likely to be out in the open feeding on grasses and cereal crops. If you can safely pull off the road, park up for a few minutes and watch their antics - you'll find them very entertaining.

It's this erratic behavior that has given us the word "harebrained" meaning a scatterbrained foolish person.

Hares have amazing eyesight; with large eyes situated at the sides rather than the front of the head they have panoramic vision which alerts them to danger long before it reaches them.

With long powerful hind legs they are very athletic and can reach speeds of up to 45 mph. That speed, coupled with an amazing ability to zigzag, means an adult hare has few predators, other than the most dangerous of all -- Homo sapiens.

Most young are born between March and October, although hares can breed all year round. A litter of two or three young, known as leverets are produced three to four times a year. Unlike their distant cousin the rabbit, hares are born above ground in a nest called a form, with their eyes open and fully furred.

The mother, known as a Jill (the male is known as a Jack) will leave the young during the day, so as not to bring attention to them, and return to suckle them at night. When the Jill departs, the young will crouch down in a separate form for each leveret (this is little more than a scrape in the ground) and flatten their ears on their backs which makes them amazingly hard to see. Very young leverets are at their most vulnerable at this time from predators such as foxes, stoats and birds of prey.

Hares occur in many parts of the world and have long been associated with folklore and mythology, they are revered in many parts and rightly so. Hares appear in folklore from all corners of the globe from the Americas to Africa, the Far East and Asia as well as Europe. In Roman times the hare was the symbol of the goddess Andraste, Iceni Warrior Goddess of southern Britain. The hare is also associated with the Celtic goddess Cerridwen as well as a companion to Aphrodite and Cupid -- associated with love and fertility.

Hares often appear in literature such as Lewis Carroll's March hare in "Alice in Wonderland", Aesop's fable "The Hare and the Tortoise" and the myth "Why there is a hare on the moon" to name but a few.

There are many myths and superstitions associated with the hare but to me they are just beautiful animals to watch and appreciate and I'm very fortunate to live in a part of the country that still has them in abundance.