Watching me watching you

Hello and welcome to the latest blog from The Olivia Rose Diaries on June 14^th 2024.

We have been cruising for 7 years now and never had a summer like this one. Or a lack of summer, to be more accurate. Temperatures barely reaching 12 degrees during the day, most days a mixed bag of unpredictable weather, usually grey, often windy, but with sudden interludes of sunshine that get the hopes up, only for them to be dashed half an hour later as the rain comes back. We’ve had some days where it has rained literally all day long, days when we have got soaked on the boat, and then again on the bikes. Blankets needed on the bed at night and full winter gear for clothing. As you can probably tell the weather is getting to me! And it isn’t just in the Netherlands either. The summer is conspicuous in it’s absence in other countries across Europe.

But enough of that. We just have to put up with it, hope it will get better eventually and be grateful when the sun does shine. Given that the weather has limited us somewhat over the last few days I have a different blog for you this week. I recently had an encounter with a hare and thought I would share it with you.

I looked at the hare and it looked at me. I was walking down a grassy track that opened out onto a field and suddenly it was in front of me, perfectly framed by the trees that arched over from either side of the path. Neither of us moved. I was close enough to see how big its eyes were, glassy and protuberant. And those wonderful ears, somehow too big for the rest of the body, both comical and endearing.

The only thing I know about hares is that they go a little mad in March. I’ve always assumed that when hares are seen boxing it is two males, seeking to impress or claim a female, and at times this might be so, but it is just as likely to be a female who has tired of the overly-persistent attentions of a male and has decided it’s time to put him in his place.

Eventually my hare must have decided I was nothing to worry about and gave up the staring match. It began to eat, crouching low, half-hidden in the grass, flattening its ears along its back. Their eyesight is triggered by movement and if you stay still long enough there is a chance that they will come very close, unaware that you are there. Wildlife photographer Rich Steel recounts in his blog of an encounter where a hare walked up to him while he was sitting on the hedge line and actually started licking his boot! He suggests that if you really want to get close it is best to crawl flat on your belly as they associate an upright human with danger.

I decided today was not a day for crawling about in the grass and instead wondered what my hare actually saw when he, or she, looked at me. Indeed what does any animal or bird see when they look at a human being? They certainly don’t perceive us in the same way that we view ourselves, some seeing in a more limited sense whilst others command a more sophisticated view of the world. Bees have no red receptors and so what seems like a vibrant red to us will probably be some combination of blue-green, blue or violet to them. Snakes can sense infra-red and thermal images. Birds of prey can focus over long distances, to the point where we might see just a field but they can see a mouse hidden in the grass.

As for the hare, they are flight animals and their eyes are placed high to the side of their head, giving them almost 360 degrees of vision, a vital tool in detecting and evading predators. They have a small blind spot, directly in front of their face, and this explains why they don’t always see you if you are directly in front of them. Humans can detect red, blue and green light but hares see only in blue and green and, whilst they can see more clearly than us in the low light of dusk and dawn, their resolution is not so good in bright light, giving their world a grainy feel to it.

I had been standing quite still, hare-watching, for long enough. I backed away, slowly, but within a second the hare’s head came up, its head swivelled in my direction and it shot off, jumping cleanly over the ditch and out across the field. I watched it run, envying its grace and wishing, just for a second, that I could experience the elation of being able to fly over the ground so effortlessly. Instead, I turned back, feeling heavy and slow, a bit like the proverbial tortoise. The hare can reach speeds of 40 mph and I can’t even match that on my bike.

As I left the little copse of trees behind me the evening sun suddenly broke free from behind a bank of clouds, bathing the clearing in that wonderfully rich light that only comes at the end of the day. All my niggling feelings about the weather disappeared, wiped clean by the beauty of the moment and by the good fortune to have had a quiet encounter with a hare.

And that’s about it for this week. I sincerely hope somebody, somewhere is enjoying some warm sunshine! See you again soon.

MJ