There are lots of hares to be seen at the moment. Anything rabbity seen well out in an arable field will be a hare. Rabbits don’t often go right out from cover because their escape strategy is to run back to their burrows and these are at the edges. Hares do the opposite – they head for the open where they can run as fast as they can when threatened. Rabbits are agoraphobic and hares are claustrophobic. When you get a close view of a hare they are distinctive because they look much less cute than rabbits, with big slightly droopy eyes like a camel, and they look much more lanky with their longer legs and ears. Hares initially also crouch down flat when approached – they can flatten themselves very effectively to disappear from sight and dig little scrapes to help this. Rabbits tend to freeze where they are, watching very carefully to weigh up when they should run for cover. This morning I watched a group of five hares still doing their mad March thing, chasing and boxing in the cow field between the airfield buildings. It may be June, but hares breed, well like rabbits, and they are having a good year.
Wild Crail 
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