NATURE The timid Irish mountain hare

Timid souls, swift afoot


Country Sights and Sounds
John Shelley

Giorria sauntered across the field on those long legs, following a meandering course with her head held high, those big round eyes watching for the slightest threat or danger. If only she knew how we loved her, then she might not be so shy. Yet others, no more than oafs, have treated her badly. Now timidity has become so ingrained that we have little chance of becoming friends.
Once I stumbled across Giorria in slumber. She lay in long grass in a brief moment of sun with her head down and eyes closed. I was able observe her form, so delicate yet so much at home in the spring meadow with its touch of new green and wildflower freckles. I stood, spellbound, the trout in the stream forgotten as I watched the rise and fall of her breast in soft and gentle breathing.
It was so unusual to find her like this, so overcome with fatigue that the need for rest rendered her senseless. The old woman at the top of the road had sworn that Giorria must sleep with her eyes open, so hard she had ever been to approach. Not eyes, perhaps, but ears I think, so that any unusual sound should alert her. How sorry to be sleeping on one’s nerves like that.
I had wanted to wake her, to make her acquaintance and maybe share one fleeting moment, just one word. I knew, though, that panic would rise to set her heart a-pounding and send her bounding away at full flight. Sad in the knowledge I could never know her, I turned quietly away to sit on one of those heaps of spoil torn by the dredger from the heart of the stream, where I found cowslip to nibble – Giorra’s food, and when I looked back she was gone. I left one of my mints in the grassy depression her body had made to show I meant no harm, then returned to casting dry flies into stickles where the trout were at play.
Giorra is a hare. That is her Irish name. She is a mountain hare, and a pure wild native. Her name in Latin is poetically descriptive: ‘Lepus timidus’.
Years between then and now have taught me much. Giorria had likely been exhausted after being chased about the hills by a number of potential suitors. The chase, together with not a little sparring, sets apart the strongest of the males, so that offspring born from any subsequent mating will keep up the vitality of the species.
It is now, in the month of March, that the hare’s breeding season gets fully under way. Males home in on females coming into season and the females flee for their dignity. Males come into contact with each other and fights ensue. They rear up on hind legs and box, striking each other in the face with their forepaws. These encounters tend to be brief, lasting only for a few seconds. Most of the courtship, if we can call it that, consists of chasing the non-receptive female until she runs no more.
Then it is her turn to box her suitor around the ears, which she does, time and again. What follows is inevitable, and in time three or four of the most beautiful creatures are born in a fold in the long grass, which we properly call a form.
Unlike most other small mammals the baby hares or leverets are born with a full coat of fur and with eyes and ears fully open. For the first week of life they lie quite still as if unafraid, and can be easily picked up and handled. This is quite the wrong thing to do, for if the mother catches the scent of humankind on her offspring she will likely abandon it and leave it to starve to death.
Man’s cruelty drives him to hunt the hare with dogs bred for speed (the greyhound) or for stamina (the beagle). If we had to eat the hare we could justify such an act, but when this is done in the name of sport there is nothing to be gained but a dark stain on one’s character.
How much better to meet Giorria in a moment of peace, to marvel at the way she is made, and to look on admiringly as she gives a twist of speed in traversing the open fields.