Alan's Ramblings - mountain hare tag

Snow, Hare

Sun, 05 Dec 2004 04:31:01 GMT

A couple of weeks ago we had the first snow of the year - according to some pundits we are in for a cold winter this year. I was out on patrol that weekend, trying to finish my survey of the Bleaklow fence. Unfortunately the snow made it such slow going that by the time I'd reached Grinah it was time to turn around and come back. I finally got the survey finished yesterday, it took me seven days in total to cover the 32Km and record the 153 stiles and fences - much of the time being taken up by walking to and from the fenceline rather than along it.

Anyway, I got some photos of Bleaklow in the snow which I've posted below. The first one is of the 'mushroom rock' at Bleaklow Stones - a well-known example of the sometimes wierd shapes that the gritstone weathers into. I've jazzed the picture up a little, but the sun really was directly behind it ;-)

The footprints in the snow in from of the rock are those of the mountain hares that live up here - you can see the prints even more clearly in the photo below. This was taken from Bleaklow Stones, the western end of the Kinder plateau can be seen to the left of the photo.

On the same day I was out blundering around in the snow and falling through it into what seemed like just about every rank peat bog in the Peak District, Bob and John were over by Lightside, about 2Km from where I live. John spotted this hare up in the rocks - they often hide up in areas like this as it gives them protection from both the weather and predators - not that they actually have that many predators in the Peak District!

They are normally fairly skittish (well, they are Lepus timidus after all ;-), so Bob and John spent some time carefully approaching it and as well as the superb photo below, John got some excellent video footage. It is just in the process of shedding its brown summer coat and switching into its white winter camouflage - not a particularly sucessful ruse bearing in mind the limeted amounts of snow we get - all the snow that was on the ground when these pictures were taken has long since gone.

If you are interested in more information on Mountain Hares, I can recommend a visit to both The Mammal Society's page on them, and the image collection at ARKive.

It's Hare again

Sat, 14 Feb 2004 08:48:23 GMT

For a bit of a change I decided that for today's patrol I'd park up at Snake Summit and walk down Lady Clough to where it joins Ashop Clough, walk up the Snake Path to Ashop Head the back along the Pennine Way to Snake summit - a nice leisurely walk. After getting off the road I dropped into Lady Clough woods:

There used to be a lovely walk along the banks of Lady Clough and when Mark was a toddler it was one of his favorite places. Unfortunately we had some bad floods in 2002, and it damaged the footpath quite badly. In particular the footbridge over Lady Clough was undercut by the water, and in some places the river changed course and swept the path away. The woodland is owned by the Forestry Commision, and I must say I'm very disappointed in them, after nearly two years the bridge is still not repaired and rather than repairing the old footpath they've chosen to reroute it through a thick part of the woodland, cutting down trees to make a new path. It's not been used very heavily and already it is a muddy morass in places. 0 out 0f 10, Forestry Commision!

Once I got to the confluence of Lady Clough and Adhop Clough I turned right and headed up Ashop Clough to the old shooting cabin at Upper Gate Clough, where I had lunch.

There used to be lots of these shooting cabins all over the Dark Peak, and they were used to shelter and feed the gentry who came to shoot the grouse. Most of the moors were closed to the public until the National Park was formed in 1951, and in fact confrontations between Gamekeepers and Ramblers were common, culminating in the Kinder mass trespass in 1932. Most of them are now derelict either due to neglect or because they have been pulled down, although a few still survive (not this one though!)

My original plan was to walk up the Snake Path to Ashop Head and then back along the Pennine Way. However I had bags of time, so I decided I'd sneak up Kinder (I hope none of the Hayfield or Edale Rangers read this, as Kinder is their patch! :-) I made my way up the line of Grouse butts that lead towards Fairbrook Naze, and as I was getting my breath back, er - admiring the view I mean, about half way up, I noticed this Mountain Hare a few yards away.

It looked distinctly unconcerned, so I slowly crept as close as I could to it without it running away. It is around this time of year that the hares begin their nuptuals, and they become a lot more active and visible. I saw this one and one other, but one of the other rangers out on patrol on Bleaklow had counted in excess of 60 today. The hares were introduced for sport (i.e. shooting) in the 1830's, and they seem to have thrived. Most of the other introductions iin the UK have failed, so this is the most southerly outpost of this species. They are the same animal that you see in all those Arctic nature programs being chased by Arctic Foxes.

I got to within about 10 feet, and at that point I judged that from the quizzical look he he was giving me I'd got as close as he was going to allow. I'd have liked to have got a better shot, but my camera has only a fairly weedy zoom. Once up on the top I walked westwards along The Edge (the northern edge of Kinder is called 'The Edge', and it is in fact the edge of the plateau - all very confusing).

Carrying along the edge of The Edge (see, I said it was confusing!) past Nether and Upper Red Brooks, I got to the Boxing Gloves, so called for a rather obvious reason.

And from there I carried along to Ashop Head and Mill Hill. As I was walking up to Mill Hill I passed a guy who I'd seen earlier by the cabin I stopped at for lunch - he was most confused because he'd seen me walking eastwards down the path, and now I'd appeared in front of him about 3Km west of where he'd seen me last. After the usual pleasantries and the "What do the Ranger Service do?" conversation I beetled off down the Pennine Way back to Snake Summit, only to find when I got back to the Briefing Centre at Bottoms that the gate was locked and I couldn't get in! These Assistant Rangers can be so unreliable at times, can't they Andy ;-)

Here's Hares!

Sat, 18 Jan 2003 07:10:13 GMT

Went out on Ranger patrol today, up from Far Blacks, Grinah Stones, Bleaklow Stones, Near Bleaklow Stones then back down Near Blacks. The area at the top of the 3 Blacks (White Stones/Bleaklow Meadows) was swarming with mountain hares - I counted 25 in about 1 hour. One of the other Rangers in the Crowden area saw loads as well. There was snow on the ground 2 weeks ago, so they are in their pure white winter coats, so they stood out a mile. So much for them being rare!