It's lovely to see a little sunshine today, perhaps spring really is on its way.
What a strange, warm, wet, windy winter it’s been. The bats
have stayed on the wing, hedgehogs have barely bothered to hibernate,
butterflies, blossom and daffodils have all made unusual appearances: it’s been
tempting to think ‘What Winter?’
This was despite MET Office predictions last October for the
coldest and most severe winter on record. The hype about this bitter forecast
reached fever pitch when a Bewick’s swan made it onto the national news when it
arrived from Siberia two weeks earlier than usual.
At the time, I was in a meeting in Bristol to discuss ideas
for wildlife topics for The One Show.
The BBC1 series producer wanted my input for a new series of
wildlife related pieces and I suggested a snow safari to look for owls, and
hares. The plan was to show how hares breed and box all year round. The
producers jumped at the idea and commissioned a four and a half minute piece.
I came home and made initial preparations. In order to
photograph wildlife up close it is important to blend into the background. I
have had plenty of practice and have a few tricks up my sleeve: a snow white
ski suit, a balaclava made out of a pillowcase, white oven gloves and tailored
white covers to wrap around my camera
and tripod.
I had enough of this white camouflage for myself but I bought
extra for the film crew and presenters.
All we needed now was snow. Many don’t like snow, but I love
it. There is nothing that transforms the landscape so fast. Overnight you find
yourself in a totally different environment and this can present so many
opportunities for my photography and artwork.
We had a flurry in
November but it didn't last the day. This was followed by so many wet and windy
storms I was getting worried the MET office, that was using the alphabet to
give each storm a sequential name, would run out of letters.
Then finally in January the snow came. Not a lot, but enough
for me to get some video footage of the hares before inviting the rest of the
crew for the main shoot.
I drove to some fields where I often see hares. And sure
enough, I spotted a few in the distance straight away. They looked like specks
of brown on a pure white background. But I wanted to find a larger group so
that I could film the interactions between them.
I scanned the landscape with my binoculars and soon spotted
a group of eight on a distant field. I continued my search and picked out a further
30 hares, some of them actually boxing.
This field was clearly the place to go for. I rang the landowner
to get permission to film and then set off. Dressed in a white ski suit I headed up a tram line, made by
a tractor wheel, which took me directly towards the hares.
It was slow going. I wanted to get close enough to the hares
to film them so I gradually walked closer, stopping whenever they showed signs
of having spotted me. It was like a game
of grandmother’s footsteps.
After a couple of hours I was in photographing range of
eight hares, frolicking in the snow. The group seemed to have got used to my
presence.
I didn’t manage to film any actual full-on boxing but I had
shots of some chasing one another about and even a few spats. Then I heard a
dog yapping. Suddenly more hares came over the brow of the hill in front of me.
The hares that I had been watching flattened their ears and squatted to the ground.
Some of them dashed off. There were hares running in all directions. Then a
lurcher ran across the field in hot pursuit of a hare, followed by a yappy
mongrel .
The dogs disappeared. But now there was not a hare in sight.
They weren’t poachers’
running dogs. The yappy crossbreed wouldn’t be fast enough to catch a hare. After
a while some of the buck hares came back into the field looking for the does.
But they were very jumpy and soon dashed off again.
Feeling disgruntled, I headed off to a different field on
the other side of the valley. There, I spotted two more groups. One of eight
and one of 10, with a few stragglers around the edges of each. I headed to the
smallest and nearest group.
I started making my approach slowly and then out of nowhere
a bank of fog rolled in and enveloped me. I couldn’t see a thing. It was like
being in a giant white margarine tub.
I heard the faint call of a grey partridge. The sound got
gradually louder and louder and then a ghostly partridge appeared out of the mist,
running and calling. I watched as its silhouette disappeared and faded into the
fog, along with its call.
Alone again I tried to navigate by looking at my footsteps behind
me. As long as these were in a straight line, I judged that I was still going
towards the group of hares.
Then a hare burst out of a snow hole and dashed away from
me. Finally my eye had something to focus on. The stray hare ran straight into
the group of hares. They looked like ghosts in the distance, all standing to
attention, ears, eyes and noses alert to danger. I waited for them to settle
before slowly edging forward. Then suddenly, explosively they all ran at once
away into the fog.
I decided to try my luck with the group that had been
further down the field. Again, as I made my way blindly across the field, I
bumped in to a straggler. He ran down the field and disappeared into the whiteness.
I then spotted the larger group of hares. I had to tread really carefully.
There were even more eyes and ears to spot me this time.
I took eight steps forward. Then stopped for a few minutes.
Then I took another eight. As I got
closer I reduced it to six steps. Then four steps. I was watching the hares all
the time. Any twitch of an ear or tilt of a head and I would stop for as long
as it took to settle back down.
Then I saw a buck try his luck with a female. He sniffed at
her but she looked less than interested and hunkered further down into the
snow. Another buck chased this rival off in a circle around the group. There
were two females amongst them - I could tell they were female by the obvious
attention they got from the bucks and by the fact that they were slightly
smaller with finer heads and paler fur than the more ginger bucks. Their body
posture also gave them away. They tended to stay huddled down in the snow,
defensively.
At last the fog began to clear. I watched the group for an
hour. It was fascinating seeing the bucks jostling for position in the group
and amusing to see how all their antics did little to impress the females who
continued to hunker down into the snow.
I edged forward. Then without warning one of the females
took flight, taking the bucks with her on a race across the field. She would
only choose the fittest and strongest male to mate.
Then I saw her start to box. Snow and fur went flying as the
pair fought it out, both standing bolt upright on their hind legs. Frustratingly
they were too far away to film.
The race continued on to the next field and out of sight. I
had only just one female hare left in front of me now. I got down low into the
snow and on my hands and knees crept closer and closer until I was within 12
metres of her. She stayed in the same huddled position the whole time, like a
compacted sculpture.
Then she got up and casually started eating her own
droppings. Surprisingly, these retain some of their nutritional value. This
wasn't the dramatic film of boxing hares that I had envisaged. But it was
interesting behaviour nonetheless.
