Habitat

Hares like to live on large areas of open land where arable crops are nearby and tend to not live in smaller enclosed fields and also prefer to leave near broad leaved woodland near to a field so they have some where to hide.

Distribution in the uk

Can be found all over the uk but not in Scotland and not common in Ireland.

  Months seen

All year round more commonly seen in the summer and after harvest in the autumm.

Food eaten

 Hares feed mainly on herbs in the summer, and grasses in the winter also feed on cereal and root crops and in bad seasons, it has been suggested that they may eat animal corpses.

Habits

Hares live above ground in shallow scrape of soil called a form and do not live in holes like there rabbit relatives as when the hare lies in a form it has a perfect view of whats going on around it listening to every sound and vibration with its sensitive hearing .Brown hares escape predators by running at lightning speeds up to 40mph as there powerful back legs give them a great advantage agaisnt most british predators.

 Tracking

 Hares have longer ears than a rabbit and have black tips also a rabbits ears are shorter than its head and a hares ears are usually longer than its head .Like other uk mammals hares leave signs of there presence by getting there fur caught on barbed wire where the hare enters or exits a field but the best time to track hares is when its been snowing as the farmland fields are usually blank canverses in winter giving you an easy way to follow there footprints to the place where they sleep or hide.

Courtship

In the spring hares start there breeding season and begin there boxing displays also known as the traditional 'mad March hare' behaviour which is the female seeing off males that are trying to mate with her and the female can be over run with offers of a mate leading to lots of fights between males. Females can have up to 3 litters a year, and on average, give birth to four young known as leverets, after a gestation period of 41-42 days. The leverets are normally weaned after one month.

 Check out our Brown Hare pages Below :

 PhPhotographs taken by Mike Mottram , Darek Karp ,dartraffe,