Hare of the Dog

Two hares spotted today on Emley Moor, doing their best greyhound impressions! Large viewing recommended.

Focus is not pin sharp due to me leaping out of the car and running down the road like a mad woman whilst swapping lenses, and then just shooting. Only one shot was perfectly in focus, and beautifully framed against the snow drift on the edge of the field. However, in that shot the hares were, shall we say, doing what comes naturally, and I think this is probably not the place for hare porn.

I have a very soft spot for hares - I collect them in fact (the bronze kind), and I feel them to be somewhat under-appreciated creatures, particularly compared to their cutesy fluffy rabbit cousins. The poet William Cowper kept hares and his interest in them perhaps nursed him back from mental illness. He even wrote an elegy to his favourite:-

Here lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue,
Nor swifter greyhound follow,
Whose foot ne'er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman's hallo',

Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,
Who, nurs'd with tender care,
And to domestic bounds confin'd,
Was still a wild Jack-hare.

It goes on at length.

Meanwhile, my son says the hares remind him of the visions in Donnie Darko and he finds them creepy. It is good to have teenagers around to keep things real.