Mad March Hare pays a visit.... in April!

Well, what a surprise just now.... a mad March hare in April.... at the backdoor [almost]....

I was just about to take some compostables outside when I spotted a hare lolloping towards me, out in the potager... it then turned down towards the big rhubarb and out of my site.
We do get hares from time to time... usually in the field next door or out in our watermeadow.
But always too fleeting, or too fast...

"Compost be damned!" I thought, as I grab camera and carefully open latch on back door...
and lo, the lievre comes lolloping back round the corner of the wall.... and towards me... WTH!
So I start taking photos as it comes right up to the grassy side of the Woodchipio®, pausing only to taste the grass... it was a wet hare... needed a blowdry?
It would have come via the roadside fence... so had probably been in the Winter wheat or barley on the other side of the road... 

Until this morning, I hadn't really appreciated just how big they really are...
the normal view being, always, from a distance... with little to give scale!
It was as large, possibly larger than Baron our small black panther....
as long in the body, the head was half as big again as Baron's...
and the hoooooge ears, amazing....
it may not have weighed Baron's eight kilos, but I think it was possibly not far off!

So, please... share in my "wet hare" moment....
I rather like the punkish topknot!

This was the closest it came... and I couldn't fit it in the frame!

This, however, was what I thought would be my closest view... the inspection hatches for the fosse filter bed!
Was I about to be surprised... it suddenly turned towards me just as I had zoomed out to get a better shot...
so, I got this...

Terrible picture.... ears all cut off, but still somewhat magical to me!

After having a nibble of the grass along the edge of the Woodchipio®, it turned and lolloped away towards the potager... much the way it had come... but, as it went... it did the Mad March Hare routine....

I had zoomed back out enough... but it decided to keep exploring..
so off it went!

This is a more normal "hare shot"... going away!!
As it lolloped it showed a clean pair of heels... but muddy feet!

Then... it stopped, sat on its haunches and did a bit of "shadow boxing"....

Followed by getting really "wild" with its opponent...
standing on tiptoe... and really throwing those punches!!

And then away it went.... much in the opposite direction to which I saw it arrive...

Although it may look to be in the classic "hare at speed" pose...
it is, still, just lolloping along...

.... and, after this last shot, it stayed around for about five more minutes.... having a nibble here, a nibble there... not, seemingly, worried by being near habitation!
So, an Easter Monday Mad April Hare came to visit.......

Hare today

The hare was moving right to left...

Either the cold weather is making the creatures more venturesome, or it's just the snow revealing where they have passed. This morning we awoke to find an unmistakeable set of Hare (Lepus europaeus) lièvre tracks passing our front door.

Coming towards the camera
If you look closely at the first set of prints,
you can see the rear right paw mark clearly at the bottom of the hole.

A hare, travelling at some speed, crossed the bridge from the meadow, and accelerated around the end of the barn to the proto-hedge where it could cross the road. Each set of pawprints is a single splodge in the snow, with the two front feet in line at the back. The huge back feet pass the front feet as the hare bounds along, landing splayed out to either side.

Here, the hare's front feet are at the back and the orangy splodges, just above the front elbows, are the hind feet overtaking!

Hares are hunted for the pot throughout France and elsewhere. In our community of communes the hunting fraternity is performing a comptages(census) of hares because of concerns about the population, believed to be declining rapidly (more by habitat loss than from predation). The season for hares was 25 September to 4 December last year, so our hares can bounce in peace for the time being.

Here is that paw print again.