Metamorphoses
‘Waiting for Better Times’, Mountain Hare, the Peak District
The Peak District revealed itself both nonchalantly and dramatically. Coming off the monotonous and droning journey on the M1, meandering through some nondescript towns and villages, my windscreen was suddenly filled with the images I had only seen in postcards. Muted tones of the natural vegetation abound, the scenery before my eyes had a pleasing mixture of natural ruggedness, dotted with the signs of civilisations and livelihoods both past and present.
Driving along further, I note Kinder Scout to the left, still snow-capped in early March. In my head, I could imagine mountain hares sitting somewhere in this unforgiving terrain, but I found it hard to believe that this land could sustain life - it just looked bleak and bare. On second thought, though, perhaps that’s how it’s meant to look, given that moorland is a manmade landscape as a result of relentless land and habitat management, designed to encourage only certain species to thrive and discourage all the others. Mountain hares are not native to the Peak District, either, only introduced from the Scottish highlands for sporting and game purposes in the 19th century. This might make you wonder what the moor originally looked like, before so much of the land, habitat, and animals and birds that live in it, was deliberately altered by humans.
Francis, my guide and the hare whisperer (I secretly gave him this nickname!), led the way, checking the potential hollows called ‘forms’ that mountain hares prefer to sit in. With some ice patches left on the ground, one’s eyes are easily misled. The land is rugged, heavily andulated. It’s not an exaggeration to say land shapes dictate the courses we can take to approach a hare, invariably in a zigzag pattern. For the untrained, this was impossible. I lost my bearings in relation to where we were meant to be headed countless times.
A bolting hare
‘Flushing’ is what tends to happen as in the photo above, unless you spot the hare first. Of course, the hare waits until the last moment, hiding from us, before it decides to bolt to escape. After some trial and error, Francis managed to find one hare sitting in the sun. He advises me to use a teleconverter initially so that at least I’ll bag a decent photo of a hare to show for the trip!
My first pic of the mountain hare in the Peaks!
Mountain hares moult, and in the photo you can see it’s gradually developing brown coat for spring/summer. People often deplore the diminishing or contrary effect of camouflage deployed by wild animals against predation, given how much milder winter has become. But speaking only for myself and not birds of prey, I can say the mountain hare’s camouflage is fully effective helped by the residual snow patch on the ground! Speaking of birds of prey, I asked Francis if he saw them frequently, prompted by the sign post I saw on short-eared owls present in the area, but he confirmed birds of prey were few and far between. We didn’t even see a single kestrel on our outing.
The land is grazed by sheep and in one big chasm we spotted a carcass and it turned out to be that of sheep. Perhaps it fell into it and died. Naturally, it would have attracted the attention of potential predators, but eerily the dead body was left alone by all potential predators with the exception of hungry crows. While it is debatable whether this unnatural absence of predators is consequential, or due to ongoing persecutions, there’s no doubt intervention of species casts a long shadow on the inhabitants of the moor. Perhaps it’s still good news for the mountain hares though.
Mountain hares spend daylight hours being sedentary and that makes it extremely challenging to find one unless you know where you’re supposed to look. As the sun dropped its height in the west of the moor, we began to see some white spots appearing on the surfaces - these turned out to be foraging mountain hares such as this one.
Nom nom nom nom!
Earlier, I confessed to calling Francis a hare whisperer. That is out of none other than my admiration for his ability to ID his hares, and read and interpret even the smallest change in the hare’s body language. In the extremely short time I spent with the mountain hares of the Peaks, I slowly started to appreciate individual differences in characters. While we were on the stomach crawling on the grass inching closer to this hare, we spotted in a distance a bolder hare, sitting proud as if he were the head of the kingdom.
I’m not for hiding as I’m the king!
At a lower level, we photographed a different hare, which seemed somewhat more timid and scared of the dominant hare higher up.
‘Prettiest Hare’ of the day, according to Francis
Of the photos taken in the brief time I spent with the mountain hares of the Peaks, the next photograph, although not at all unique in style, is definitely one of my top two favourites. The piercing eye looking at the lens means it’s clearly aware of our presence, but its rotund posture suggests it is sufficiently relaxed. Its extra-fine soft fur has a beautiful gradation of white merging with grey on the top, implying a shift in seasons.
‘Rotund & Fluffy’
Seeing me walking about carrying an unfittingly big and heavy lens, people often ask me the most obvious question.
‘What’s so fascinating about photographing wild animals (to make it worthwhile)?’
I used to, and still get stuck on that question as my honest answer is longwinded and may not be readily understood. But the shortest answer I can give is this; it’s my way of processing the world, others, and myself.
Watching nature and wild animals helps me realise and accept one simple rule of the universe. Everything is in flux. Nothing is static. Just like the mountain hares changing their coats and the moorland that’s been heavily worked over thousands of years.
We are, at best, a momentary end-result of the various changes, some big, some tiny, that have taken place over time. Even an inanimate object such as a stone cannot remain immune to changes. Such changes may not be so dramatic as to be called ‘metamorphoses’ but I always like a bit of a drama as I am a wildlife photographer.
And perhaps that’s one trait that may never change.
‘You only start seeing when you’ve stopped looking….’
‘You only start living when you become aware that your time on this planet is limited…’
‘Don’t resist changes because they have already taken place therefore resisting is futile.’
Welcome and embrace your metamorphoses.