Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow

A leporidaen tale of a surprise leveret and Lucky, the baby bunny.

It’s not unusual to find leverets down the lane here in our wild Northumbrian garden. In March I saw hares in the morning light, as I stood at the sink to fill the kettle. I wrote about them in ‘Town Mouse or Country Mouse’. We’ve had a hare give birth amongst the tulips, leaving a soft brown baby to sleep in peace during the day, and last year a leveret nestled under the front room window in the warm, south-facing flower border. However, on Saturday I spooked a hare on my way to the potting shed and she dropped a newborn leveret on the grass as she ran off across the garden.

My heart was in my mouth. I felt terrible for disturbing the birth. The poor mother. What was she feeling? Was this wee one going to be alright? It opened its eyes and just sat there, its fur still wet from birth, the grass dewy around it.  I had planned to pot up the tomatoes but went indoors. I’d give the little one some peace, let the garden be quiet in the hope that its mam came back.

This is Northumberland, the land of the brown hare. If you walk down the lane at dusk, hares will cross your path, dodge under hawthorn hedges and bound over the fields towards the setting sun. They are a beautiful sight, and folklore tells us they are a symbol of abundance, prosperity, and good fortune. I always feel immense privilege when I see the hares down the lane, especially in our garden. It’s as if they feel safe here, protected and I am delighted that they return every year to birth their young.

I’ve taken inspiration from the abundance of hares in my novel writing, The Rewilding of Molly McFlynn which is to be published on October 28^th by The Book Guild. Here’s a bit of dialogue taken from my upcoming novel when Molly discovers a leveret in the garden. It’s the early days of the Covid pandemic and Molly’s Nan is helping a neighbour.

            ‘Molly, would you go out into the garden and pick some tulips? I want to drop some off at Mrs Frampton’s on the way. She’s having to isolate because of her age and her family is all down south. We can leave them on her doorstep with half a dozen eggs and give her a wave through the window. I want to check she’s ok.’

            I found the tulips, and as I bent down to pick them, I spotted something small and brown, huddled down in the ground. I ran into the kitchen.

            ‘I’ve found something. Come and see!’ I motioned for Nan to come quietly, and I took her to the patch of tulips, gently pulling back the leaves.

            ‘Ah, that’s a leveret, Nan said, ‘a baby hare. Wonderful creatures. Hares often come into your life when you need to work something out.’

            ‘I’ll go and get Grandad!’

            ‘No, we’ll just keep this to ourselves, Molly. Hares are strongly feminine in their energy. Besides, Grandad won’t want hares in the garden, nibbling his cabbages.’

Leverets are left by their mothers soon after birth and should not be disturbed, but this wee one was only just born and hadn’t moved and the bright sun now shining on it seemed harsh as it quivered in the damp grass. We have sparrowhawks as regular visitors here and I was worried about this leveret lying in full view. We decided to move it just a couple of feet, under the shade of the blackcurrant bushes. Careful not to touch it and leave our scent on it, we lifted it gently with a spade and laid it carefully in a safe spot, away from the view of predators. But there we left it, undisturbed and went about our day, careful to be as quiet as could.

Whilst a wild leveret should not be disturbed, pet rabbits are an entirely different matter and all this reminded me of a family saga from some years ago when the children were small. They had pet rabbits – The fella who gave us them, Tommy Tulip, said they were two females. You know what’s coming! We had obviously got one male and one female. Thanks Tommy Tulip! The male rabbit for some strange reason then died, leaving a solitary rabbit, but she was not on her own for long. Very soon, six little bunnies appeared. The kids were in raptures, the bunnies very cute and very small. Then one morning, shortly after, the mother rabbit was found cold and stiff in the hutch. We were left with six hungry little bunnies, so small they sat in the palm of a child’s hand.

‘We have to save the bunnies,’ our daughter cried.

A quick call to the vet, and we were told they might be fed with kitten formula and a pipette, so we set about feeding drops of milk into these wee ones. They did ok, and two days later we were feeling quietly confident though our breath was very much still being held. Then they started to go, one at a time, burials taking place under the beech tree along with hamsters and guinea pigs who had gone before. Two baby bunnies were left, but we had another crisis. We were off to a festival. The whole family was going to Knockengorrach, that world ceilidh in the hills of Dumfries and Galloway. What to do with the bunnies?

We did what any sensible family would do, borrowed a kitten basket and took them with us! Our tent was an ex-army ten-man artic bell tent complete with wood burning stove and chimney, so the bunnies were kept warm, and we continued to take turns to feed them. On the second evening, as we danced to the sound of pipes and fiddle from The Peatbog Faeries, one died, leaving the last remaining bunny, which we named Lucky.

Lucky looked fine and even enjoyed hopping around the tent. He or she was still very small, fitting into the palm of my hand, but looked well enough, and was taking milk like a good’un from the pipette. Our friends, The 3 Daft Monkeys were playing on the main stage that night and I had a word with Athene, the singer and fiddle player. She interrupted her set to tell the audience that we had to send good wishes for strength and life to little Lucky the baby bunny. So, with the stars shining above, the rabble of Knockengorrach hooted, clapped, stamped and cheered, ‘Come on Lucky, you can do it!‘

Lucky didn’t make it and is buried at Knockengorrach.

          But back to our leveret. I needed to check we’d done the right thing and so I took a look down the Goggle tube and saw from British Wildlife Rescue Centre that a new-born leveret should be left well alone and that the mother feeds it but once a day, leaving it hidden from predators during the day. We had done the right thing and could only hope that Mam would return at dusk and feed it.

Readers, I went out in the morning, not too early, and as silently and carefully as I could, rounded the corner and searched amongst the blackcurrant bushes and nettles. No sign of the leveret. We can only hope that it has a safe place to rest and is being looked after by its mam.

If I have any updates, I’ll be sure to share them on social media. (@suereedwrites)

Thanks for reading.

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