Funny bunny

Keith searches for mountain hares in the Angus hills and finds they have to be clever when trying to blend in without snow cover

A Foehn Wind breezes through during a search for mountains hares in the Angus hills near Loch Lee.

As I set off from Invermark at the head of Glen Esk the air was freezing, the ground hard and the surrounding birches frosted white. This was going to be a cold day up in the Angus hills.

But not long after, as I approached Loch Lee, something remarkable happened, for a warm breeze swept down the glen and in a matter of seconds the temperature lifted by several degrees.

I’m no meteorological expert, but I suspect this was a “Foehn Wind”, a peculiar phenomenon where on the lee side of a mountain range the downslope wind rapidly dries and warms. In the blink of an eye the cold winter glen had suddenly become spring-like.

I was on the look out for mountain hares, and with this new-found warmth, I reckoned my best chance for seeing one would be to head to the high ground above Glen Lee, taking in the tops of Cairn Lick and Craig Maskeldie.

Once some altitude had been gained, it wasn’t too long before I spotted a hare; a faint splash of whiteness sitting tight in among some boulders.

Winter is a tricky time for mountain hares; their coats turn mostly white, but in Scotland snow cover in the mountains is far from reliable, so the animals can stick out like sore thumbs. Good news for a hunting eagle; potentially catastrophic for hares.

But despite such a handicap, this mountain hare blended in well with the snow-free surroundings. Only its head was showing, and because many of the rocks about were rather pale, the animal wasn’t too obvious. It had certainly chosen a good spot.

I didn’t want to disturb the hare so I let it be, and headed back down into the glen where I lingered for a while by the Falls of Unich, a white-foamed gushing waterfall that was being well-fed by the snow-melt.

There were plenty of red grouse in this part of the glen and I flushed several as I made my way through some rough heather, the birds taking to the air in rapid flurries of wings and accompanied by their “glock, glock, glock” alarm calls.

Rabbits were abundant too, which was a bit of a surprise, as they are not so common nowadays. Myxomatosis and, more recently, rabbit viral haemorrhagic disease has taken a terrible toll on our rabbit populations. But I imagine the isolated nature of this group of rabbits, deep in the Angus hills, will offer a degree of protection from such disease.

The rabbits here will form an important source of food for the local golden eagles, which made my mind spin into overdrive; perhaps there was a chance of seeing one. So, I scanned a nearby ridge with my binoculars, but the skies were empty apart from a lone raven, which swept across the horizon on tumbling wings.

Soon it was gone and the glen felt strangely empty, but there was still that breeze; that wonderful warm breeze. The hind feet of mountain hares are heavily furred, giving a broader print than a brown hare and acting a bit like snow-shoes in winter, enabling the animal to traverse soft powder snow.

Pictures: Getty Images. In Scotland, mountain hares can’t always rely on the snow to help hide them from predators.