Mountain Hare Hunt.

 One of the creatures that I was really hoping to photograph on the Scotland trip was the Mountain Hare. I've always enjoyed watching the Brown Hare in southern England, but up until now, I've never managed to photograph the Mountain Hare. In fact, the only one I have ever seen was during the short trip a couple of years ago with Matt, when I saw a single Mountain Hare in torrential rain. 

On that trip we visited Findhorn valley, a valley that was always a well known site for them. Despite rumours that the numbers at this site have suffered in recent years Lisa and I still decided to go back there. Even with poor numbers, it is still a wonderful area, and there is always the chance of a Golden Eagle there too. 

We had already tried Carn Ban Mor, mainly here hoping for Ptarmigan, but we didn't see either the Ptarmigan or the Mountain Hare at this site, not helped by the dreadful visibility near the top of the mountain, although plenty of Red Grouse were seen on the way up. So it was off to Findhorn for a concerted effort of finding Mountain Hare. It wasn't very long before Lisa spotted the first Mountain Hare, sitting on the mountainside in the heather. We then hatched a plan to try and get closer to it to get some photos. Unfortunately, we made a silly error finding we had overshot where we thought it would be. Not ideal, but a couple of shots were taken, and it was good to see that it had started to turn into it's winter white coat. With this early semi success we were confident of seeing several more, but alas, it was not to be.

Mountain Hare in the heather.

Higher up the track we did however see more Red Grouse and even managed to get close enough for a few half decent photographs. 

Male Red Grouse.

Female Red Grouse.

Red Grouse Group.

We did feel a little frustrated not managing to get that close to the Mountain Hare, so the following day we did it all again. We followed the same path up, scouring the hillside for the Mountain Hares, but once again, it wasn't looking too good for them. We did hear some Red Deer stags bellowing nearby, and then looking through the binoculars we saw them on the next slope over. There were several large herds of Red Deer there. They were very skittish, even though we were some distance away. They were obviously well used to being hunted here.

Red Deer.

We then decided to head back down the hill and try over the other side. On the way down I spotted a Merlin which was after one of the many Fieldfare. With another scan of the hillside I then spotted a couple of long ears which were just poking out the top of some heather. At last, I'd found a Mountain Hare. We decided to try and creep up closer to the Hare, keeping it in sight all the way, so as not to scare it. A very slow and gentle approach worked really well and we got close enough for some nice photos without disturbing it. Although it was still well tucked into its form the head showed nicely, and we were then able to walk away from it with it not having moved away.

Mountain Hare tucked into its form.

We were now 2 weeks into our trip and we still hadn't managed to see any Ptarmigan, a species that I was desperate to see. Unfortunately, time was running out. The day after the Mountain Hare hunt we were starting to head back south, with a couple of nights near Glen Shee. This area is meant to hold the biggest number of Ptarmigan anywhere in the World, so we felt we really should at last get lucky. The main problem now was we only had 2 days to find them and the weather was looking particularly bad!! After the drive south we arrived at the ski centre in rain that was falling almost horizontally in the high wind. We very nearly climbed the mountain that afternoon, but as we were about to set off the heavens opened and we decided we would be mad to go up. The forecast for the following day was even worse, however, when we got to the ski centre again on the 2nd day, it was marginally better so we risked the climb up. Not surprisingly, we were the only 2 to go up there on that day. The visibility at the top was not at all good. With lots of wandering about we did actually see lots of Mountain Hares and some of them were nearly fully white. However, the Ptarmigan remained a dream, well, at least for me. Lisa did manage to see 3 and as she photographed them they flew. All I saw was 2 white looking birds flying away. I could hardly say from that, that I had seen a Ptarmigan. It looked as though our main target for the trip was going to allude me. I did manage a couple of atmospheric photos of the Mountain Hare though to remember the very wet day by!!

Mountain Hare in the rain!!

A whiter Mountain Hare in the misty conditions.

The following day we were starting our way back home, stopping again near Martin Mere. Perhaps the Ptarmigan would have to wait for another trip unless we were extremely lucky and the weather allowed a final chance the following morning.