Very close to my heart, as you know. I loved them long before ever I saw one. My brother once drove me up onto the moors between Huddersfield and Manchester: they’re always there at dawn this time of year, he told me. He’d be driving over to Manchester to be a Chief Examiner or the like and would be soothed by seeing so many of them gathered for quite other purposes. But not that day. Not for me. It was years later, in the middle of the day, that I saw two in a field on Romney Marsh, rushing about—the hares, I mean. I was rushing off, on the little train that runs to the old nuclear power station at Dungeness (and, more wonderfully, Derek Jarman’s cottage). To see hares at last was at least as delightful as I had hoped. I have seen them a few times since, always a deeply satisfying experience—no idea why.
I read somewhere recently that when you see two hares boxing, it’s not two males fighting for a female’s favours: it’s a female trying to persuade a male to bog off.
I really enjoyed this. Gates have such a special place in my heart. X
So interesting to read this, and doesn’t John Clare capture the hare so beautifully 🐇
Very close to my heart, as you know. I loved them long before ever I saw one. My brother once drove me up onto the moors between Huddersfield and Manchester: they’re always there at dawn this time of year, he told me. He’d be driving over to Manchester to be a Chief Examiner or the like and would be soothed by seeing so many of them gathered for quite other purposes. But not that day. Not for me. It was years later, in the middle of the day, that I saw two in a field on Romney Marsh, rushing about—the hares, I mean. I was rushing off, on the little train that runs to the old nuclear power station at Dungeness (and, more wonderfully, Derek Jarman’s cottage). To see hares at last was at least as delightful as I had hoped. I have seen them a few times since, always a deeply satisfying experience—no idea why.
I read somewhere recently that when you see two hares boxing, it’s not two males fighting for a female’s favours: it’s a female trying to persuade a male to bog off.
Sometimes we have hares in the field behind our house. It's such a thrill to see them.