Mad as a March Hare

"The March Hare will be much the most interesting,

and perhaps as this is May it won't be raving mad

– at least not so mad as it was in March."  

thus spoke Alice, in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Last year he was a fluffy bundle. Now he has grown into young Master Hare.

In between nibbling and snoozing, he takes the odd stretch. Is he dreaming of Spring? Can we just get on with it now please, before I fall asleep again!!!

(The tag Mad as a March Hare refers to Spring mating behaviour when females sometimes engage in boxing matches with undesirable males.) 

Breakfast with a leveret and a pair of thrushes

Our young hare or leveret

One thrush stands guard

A small nap during breakfast

First shot of the thrush sitting on her nest

Every morning the young writer and myself have breakfast with the current neighbours. We enjoy watching the leveret, now weaned and left to his own devices. We used to joke about making a pet of him, especially my other half who secretly left carrots out for him!! Today the young writer remarked that he really is a pet already and you will see from his mid breakfast snooze that he is quite at home here in front of the kitchen window! 

This morning was especially exciting as for the first time a pair of thrushes have taken up residence in our bay tree. We have been watching them setting up home, one stands guard while the other works hard flitting backwards and forwards...too fast to capture.

Today I realised that I can see right into the nest.  If I get down on the kitchen floor, and use my longest zoom lens I can see her outline just sitting there. This is the very first blurry photo taken just now.......look very closely........ 

But sadly I have no time to linger and must get to work. Hopefully there will be more photos to follow! 

Still so much to breathe in.....

It sometimes looks as if nothing is happening. That things are static or might even be deteriorating. The Irish winter is drawing in.

The tiny windows to my soul, are squinting into the lack of light, trying to distinguish the blades of grass, trying to tell the mucky water from the mucky ducks.

Our winters are not white or dramatic. They are slow and grey and sparse.

But the layers are peeling back and the barest open spaces are revealing life at the heart of the wetlands. Flashes of colour against the fading fields, slivers of light picking up a twitching tail feather.

The hare ambles into view. For a moment he sits, lost in a trance of hare thoughts. Then his strong legs propel him forward again. We are not just waiting for it to be over. There is still so much to breathe in.

The stillness of a meditating Hare

It's 10 years ago, our first night in the new house and I can't sleep for excitement.

It is such a quiet spot and all I can hear is the sound of the endless silence ringing in my ears. I can't stop myself listening and trying to hear something I can recognise. But in no time I am hearing things that are not there at all.

Almost dawn, still tossing and turning I jump up to see my new surroundings in the morning light. The tall summer grasses are waving in unison, the Comeragh Mountains to the west are slightly misted over and just beneath my window a doe Hare and three leverets are sitting on the gravel path, utterly peaceful and unaware of my gaze.

The stillness of a meditating Hare was something I had never seen. Usually they are loping through the fields, and they can run very fast with their long hind legs. Now I often observe them staring into space for long periods especially in the evening or early morning.

Whenever I get close, as with this youngster nibbling in the garden, I am reminded of my first night here. How in the early misty morning, the Hare family introduced me to the meditative stillness that would soon become home. The way that Mother Nature again made her presence felt in my life, and that moment when I began to re-learn how to stare into space........