Hare today, and on TV tomorrow!
DID you see me on Countryfile over Easter, getting excited when I saw brown hares rushing and dancing around our Brockholes nature reserve?
It all seemed such a calm and relaxed build up as we crept towards the meadow where the hares were displaying, but it wasn’t.
The weeks before had been hairraising to say the very least. We had sleepless nights and very early mornings as we prepared the groundwork for the visit of Steve Brown and his team.
We had told Countryfile that brown hares greeted us pretty much every day at Brockholes and wandered back in when our thousands of visitors left the reserve at dusk.
However, brown hares are elusive creatures and will scoot at the first sign of a human. Their long legs and bodies are superbly fashioned for a quick getaway.
A week before Countryfile’s recce visit I was out at 5.30am trying to get some footage of hares, but heavy rain kept them under shelter, although I did get some lovely shots of roe deer.
The recce team of Eleanor and Gayle turned up the next week and, despite a couple of hailstorms, got a real taste of the reserve’s wildlife and they even spotted a hare.
On the day, our team of staff and volunteers were on the reserve at 5.30am. We had people to meet Steve, GB’s former Paralympian wheelchair rugby captain, and specifically placed ‘hare spotters.’
This was the most nervous time as they set up and we spotted some disturbance from delivery vans on the main car park. I was tense. “Oh please let us see at least one hare!”
Then over the walkie talkie came: ‘There’s a hare heading down the path,’ ‘I can see three on the meadow,’ and ‘Tell that cameraman to get over here!’ Some of our volunteers can be quite forthright.
Steve and I headed over to the meadow and there was a pair of hares, a female happily eating vegetation and a male all proud and alert. Black-tipped ears upright, keeping an eye on humans and three rivals.
For the next half hour we had a display of stand-offs, getting too close, chasing away and almost, almost boxing. The cameraman was delighted, Steve was over the moon at being so close to wildlife he had never seen and I was doing a little dance behind them.
The brown hares were not the only stars on the day. In fact our Brockholes nature reserve opened its arms to welcome a national audience in to meet its inhabitants. I nearly cried.
The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside is dedicated to the protection and promotion of the wildlife in Lancashire, seven boroughs of Greater Manchester and four of Merseyside, all lying north of the River Mersey. To become a member visit lancswt.org.uk.