In the following weeks England entered a second, and later third, national lockdown, and I quickly realised how lucky I was to run with the salmon in such carefree abandon. Winter’s bite made lockdown harder; the dark frame around each day preyed on everyone’s patience like a heavy breather over the phone. We looked for light during those months. And I set myself the goal of making the effort to see the sun rise and set as often as possible – two of few certainties on offer.
Then 2021 arrived awkwardly. The sun inched west across my daily horizon, each day rising a little earlier, a little faster. Spring was walking up the path to the front door. Seasons were blending, and I was almost out of time to see a Highland icon flaunting its winter wardrobe on the Scottish slopes. Snowdrifts across Scotland would begin their melt any minute.
I had gained permission to travel but still felt rather sheepish in this particular pursuit as I ventured north for a second time. Barely anyone knew where I was going. I liked that.
In her 1940s classic The Living Mountain, Scottish writer Nan Shepherd told us that we will never get used to the mountains of the Cairngorms – the stars of the UK’s largest National Park, nestled in the eastern Highlands of Scotland. Nan’s wisdom is hard to ignore, and I re-read that section on the train to London where I would catch my connection, finding myself nodding and making little ‘hmmm’ noises as though I were blagging a third round of cheese samples at the Christmas market. Written shortly after the war, Shepherd tells readers how writing the book offered her a welcome escapism and an outpouring of her mountainous passion pools across every page. Although these are starkly different times, I can relate to the comfort she sought in writing during what must have also been a chaotic time. Astonishingly, Shepherd’s manuscript remained hidden and unpublished until 1977, 30 years after she finished writing it. It is now rightly regarded as one of the most celebrated accounts of a landscape and an author’s intimate, personal relationship with it.
It had been one of the warmest days for the time of year, and I had even sunbathed before I left home for the station. Strange, for February. Flooded Somerset wetlands all but submerged the tops of farm gates and, as the train sped along the tracks, a grey heron – our enormous wetland antique – took flight, stirring wading birds like blossom in the breeze. The closing day unlocked a bank of fluorescent cloud, and a short-eared owl left its post and drew pace with the train for a millisecond before veering away to the meadow.
Although the usual buzz was subdued, London was the busiest place I had visited for months – probably since my sweaty hustle on the way to Orkney during the previous summer. I often joke about how I feel a ‘bit of a Hobbit’ in London, leaving The Shire for the big city, more than likely clad in dungarees and wishing I was barefoot elsewhere.
There is a certain pace at which Londoners walk, normalising a sense of urgency, no matter what the appointment. One must walk briskly and always look busy for fear of making eye contact. Night was falling, and my next train – the famous Caledonian Sleeper – was departing at 9.30 p.m. Despite having three hours to kill, I adopted this same, purposeful, London stride between Paddington and Euston, with one rucksack on my front, balanced by one on my back (yes, at times, I’m one of those people). I was saddled like a mule but energised to be going somewhere.
Pigeons flocked around a quiet Euston station. Astride a bench outside, next to Burger King, it took me a moment to take in the enormous billboards masking the construction site for the HS2 terminal set to dominate this area. Photographs of token trees scattered the posters in a wash of green. A ‘helpline’ was advertised repeatedly across all marketing. Aha! Great stuff. Are you a helpline for those concerned by HS2’s threat to 108 ancient woodlands or vexed by the irreversible harm to 693 wildlife sites? What’s your refund policy on the damaged items? I’d love to know.
My earlier zest at becoming a temporary city girl was superseded by the sheer thrill of boarding what I imagined to be Britain’s Orient Express – or – better still, the closest thing to the Hogwarts Express. Trains have an allure for many, but few things can surpass the delight that arrives upon boarding an overnight train in England’s capital, let alone the satisfaction of travelling in such a time-efficient way. Sleeper trains had a nine-year decline in popularity until 2018. Perhaps because air travel between UK and European destinations was becoming cheaper, faster and more accessible. But you’ll be pleased to hear that the UK is raising its overnight game. GWR is renovating the Night Riviera to Cornwall, and our Caledonian Sleeper has had a £150 million refurb and enjoyed a near 30 per cent rise in sales to date.
Some debate will always surface around whether sleeper trains are greener, given that they accommodate fewer seats than a standard passenger train. However, with air travel emissions rumoured to triple by 2050, I’m happy for my footprint to be train-shaped.
As I write, it’s fascinating to read how the pandemic is affecting future travel choices. Dubbed the ‘Covid climate effect’, a YouGov study for London North Eastern Railway found more than a quarter of participants aged 18–34 have cited Covid-19 as motivating more environmentally friendly travel, with staycations increasing in popularity.
Looking forward to my overnight journey, I had wondered what it would be like. My recurring, fictitious scenario would begin with a wee dram of single malt, followed by a confident hobnob among fellow, fascinating travellers. (I also seemed to have aged by about 40 years here.) Anyway, back in my cabin-for-one, I would spritz my pillow with a complimentary organic lavender spray before retiring to a cosy bunk, hushed into a dreamless sleep by the rhythmic lullaby of the track. Awakened by a soft wee knock at the door and a steaming mug of coffee, I would soon be surrounded by snowy peaks and endless opportunities in the day ahead.
Regrettably, the pandemic (and too many films) had slightly jaded this imaginary version of events. Pillow spray and the dining car were temporarily suspended for a start. However, I struggled to contain my joy upon seeing the gleaming locomotive (I think we can agree that the sleeper is no longer merely ‘a train’?). A string of carriages as green as the Caledonian forest were lined with smartly dressed staff holding clipboards, welcoming passengers aboard. I had treated myself to a cabin. Honestly? It was tiny. Rucksacks and boots sprawled the entire floor. But I loved it. And I did get a complimentary bar of soap. Pulling away from Euston, I was so excited I may as well have been waved off by Mrs Weasley on Platform 9¾, en route to my new life at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This time, a mini bottle of Jack Daniel’s served as a tenuous link to my destination. The acclaimed ‘Father of National Parks’ John Muir once famously said, ‘the mountains are calling, and I must go’. Will do, John. And oh, be a babe and throw in some hares while you’re at it?
VisitScotland states that ‘Mother Nature dealt the Cairngorms a hand full of aces’ – an analogy that always lends itself well to nature. Established in 2003, the National Park – named after the Cairngorm mountain range that features so provocatively in Shepherd’s The Living Mountain – stretches over 4,000 square kilometres of mountain, moorland, river, lochs, glens, waterfalls and forest. This largest region of Arctic landscape in the UK is the unique spread to a rather wild sandwich between Dundee to its south and Aberdeen and Inverness to its north on Scotland’s north-east coast. I was reminded of a filming escapade with a couple of uni mates in 2018, where we tensely endured Scotland’s infamous battle with midges. Safe to say, this land leaves its mark.
Having never been skiing, the prospect of a ‘winter in the Highlands’ is one of those things I’ve been desperate to claim. One of few remaining places in the British Isles with guaranteed snowfall each winter, the plateau of the Cairngorm peaks reigns as the highest, coldest and snowiest in Britain. Five of Scotland’s six highest Munros are in this range. And a popular way to use the Caledonian Sleeper is for spontaneous ski weekends for southern city dwellers when the cherished ‘bluebird powder’ days of fresh snow and light winds grace the forecast.
Just days before I visited, much of the Cairngorms was in a vice of record snowfall. Many claimed it as the ‘best winter since 2010 … a proper winter, you know?’ The average February snowfall per week here is around 12 centimetres, but these weeks saw at least 70 centimetres in parts. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that the average number of ‘snow days’ in the Cairngorms has flip-flopped like this over the past 10 years, with some winters having just two days of snowfall. Since 1997, Scotland has endured its 10 warmest years since records began in 1884. Such variation in weather – and the failure for snow to commit to the slope or frost to postpone the clock – is the new normal. For a country whose climate has leverage over the rest of Great Britain, I sure don’t relish the knowledge that my chances of experiencing a ‘proper winter’ in Scotland one day are likely melting.
Centuries of harsh weather conditions here have ensured that plumages, pelages (a fancy word for fur coat), mating rituals and flowerings are ready to be tested. For only the most resilient and foolhardy, dare I say hare-brained (I’ll see myself out) can withstand the ferocity of a Cairngorm calendar. Yes, the mountain hare was my weekend aspiration. Naturally, the very name promises an aesthetic that channels a far more Lara Croft-manner of excursion than a sunny cycle to see a butterfly. I adore a sunny bike ride to see a butterfly, but crikey, I was feeling up for a bit of a raid on the February mountainside by this point.
Lepus timidus – apparently, ‘the rabbit was nervous’, according to whoever named the mountain hare at the time. Come on, judging by the look of your average eighteenth-century scholar (who named many species), wouldn’t you be? Not one to succumb to a single label, this hare has garnered several aliases over the years: blue hare, tundra hare, variable hare, white hare, snow hare and alpine hare. This is an animal that has charmed many. The silhouette of a hare is classy. I think we love it. We might be a bit mad for it. At the very least, its long, sprinter’s legs and tall, fluffy ears have taught us through the ages that haste and recklessness don’t always pay (thanks to Aesop’s iconic fifteenth-century fable The Hare and the Tortoise).
Please note that hares and rabbits are entirely different species. Unlike the brown hare (and the rabbit), which were introduced to lowlands by some Romans, our mountain hare is a true Scot – as native to the Highlands as the Great Highland Bagpipes. Those among you who have been to the Peak District may well have seen its classic winter white form among the heather, but those populations were brought south from Scotland as game in the 1850s, so they aren’t strictly ‘native’.
That nineteenth-century translocation was essentially to fuel a fancy new field sport known as ‘driven grouse shooting’, which was fast becoming all the rage, darlings. Swathes of uplands were being volunteered for heather burning and red grouse breeding so that cliques of wealthy, pantalooned chaps could shoot them every August. More on that later, no doubt, but this new land management coincided with releasing a hare or two in the English uplands. However, the core, native mountain hare population resides in the Scottish Highlands.
Classed as a ‘boreal’ species, the mountain hare is no stranger to the northern hemisphere. Populations hop about the Alps and the Baltic. Although globally it is among the species of ‘least concern’, its Scottish situation is drearier, with its revised 2020 UK classification now ‘unfavourable to inadequate’ – ‘inadequate’ marking the fact that there continues to be a lack of information as to its actual population figures. All this admin has bumped Scottish populations into the ‘near threatened’ department of the dreaded red list. Whichever way you look at it, it wouldn’t take much to prod this species into an irrecoverable spiral.
Fortunately, this mammal has charisma on its side, which (I would hope) gives it a decent leg-up in the campaign to #BeKindToMountainHaresPlease. For a start, it’s magic. This animal can change colour. Not on demand like an octopus (let’s not be ridiculous!), but three times a year, something in a mountain hare’s brain says, ‘Come on! For everyone’s sake – put the other coat on! This one is sooo last season?!’ An invisible chemical cue renounces one colour for another, ensuring mountain hares stay on track with the latest wardrobe muse.
Colour-shifting aside, mountain hares also have the skill to extract an unbelievable quantity of nutrition from a (presumably) bland diet of poor-quality vegetation. I’m happy for them. Mountain hares actually accumulate body fat over winter despite the pickings being – shall we say – slim. Generally feeding more at night, their menu includes twigs, heather, sedge and grass. Yum. However, where their rabbit and brown hare cousins seem unable to extract the nutrients as efficiently, it’s thought the mountain hare has evolved to do so in a bid to get plump and seductive in time for its breeding season, which begins in late January. It turns out that where other animals struggle to survive within the rigour of the British uplands, our mountain hare thrives.
As for that colour change, studies have shown that receptors in the hare’s retinas transmit updates on day length to its brain as spring arrives, stimulating a shedding of white hairs and regrowth of brown, which contain melanin. The reverse happens, of course, in the run-up to winter. This process is another of those elegant user instructions from evolution’s handbook, where the trio of time, genetics and environmental pressures carefully customise a species to fuse with the seasons, helping it find its seat at the habitat table. Or at least, in an ideal world, they would. Unfortunately, these animals may soon become victims of their own disguise – of their own celebrity, even. Changes that are so natural for the hare and have ensured a relatively covert winter operation out on the snowy hillside for millennia are no longer coming soon or early enough. Biologists are predicting a mismatch of epic proportions to be taking place. Suddenly, winter white is heading out of fashion. (And much faster than it should be.)
The Cairngorms National Park is one of the last places in the British Isles where it’s possible to glimpse a community of nature found barely anywhere else. Species that seem familiar only thanks to folklore, literature and film, or so it would seem. It’s easy to ignore the fact that swathes of barren mountain ranges and valleys are not actually the Scottish Highland norm. The Cairngorms show us a different Scotland. Therein lies an altogether different mood. As a landscape, it would be fair to class the Cairngorms’ forested, rich ecology as an anomaly.
One-quarter of Britain’s threatened animal and plant life can be found here, along with a human population of around 17,000. That’s pretty mega. For instance, deep in the ancient Caledonian pine forest, you feel like you are walking around an antique shop, tempted to touch things you know are breakable. Of course, being a National Park, the Cairngorms is somewhat protected from the pressure to conform to the land uses that border it. But we mustn’t assume that, just because the park is spectacular, it is pristine wilderness. To be honest, is any wilderness left in the UK any more? But when you’re standing atop a Scottish peak woohoo-ing as free as an eagle with the wind whipping your Netherlands, yes, you feel wilderness in your literal soul.
However, the fact remains that Scotland, in its near-entirety, has been the victim of a complicated assault of the forester’s axe, the herbivorous grind of grazers, the obstinacy of shooting estates, and the engine of leisure. Genuine relics of Scotland’s ecological prototype are thus hard to find, and those that remain are introverted and recessive. This has been the reality for thousands of years, as we’ll see. For now, though, give yourself permission to indulge in the Cairngorms’ moss–heather colour scheme amid a mood board of red squirrels, snow buntings, ptarmigans, capercaillies1 , golden eagles, white-tailed eagles, Scottish wildcats and mountain hares all roaming the Cairngorm plateaus and pines. (Some more than others.)
So much for the lullaby of the track. The fragile hours between 3–5 a.m. kept me in a deranged state of wakefulness. As though conducting some giant model trainset filleting the British night, I dreamt that my toddler nephews were laying out their wooden train tracks for us in real-time, piece by piece, responsible for every jostle and clatter. The approach into Aviemore was spectacular, however, and made my journey to Euston station just a few hours ago feel like it happened in a different year. Nestled in a duvet cocoon and peering out of my little carriage window, my whimsical vision of the sleeper train was finally materialising. My thoughts were silenced by a nomadic scene revealing moorland and heathland with snow-capped peaks beyond.
As I stepped out into Aviemore feeling hungover and tired, it was clear that the entire town was hibernating. Tesco and the town bakery were to become regular supply depots over my weekend. The Cairngorms’ rural economy leans heavily on tourism and diverse local business portfolios to make a small, modest but attractive town housing a friendly community bound together by the outdoors.
Refuelled by coffee and an egg bap, eagerness resumed, and I stood in the empty street admiring the entire Cairngorm range beyond, brilliant white in the early sun. I wanted to be right up in those folds and ridges immediately, please. Low and colossal in the sky hung the snow moon. Being the second full moon of the year, its name marks winter’s final days. How utterly bonkers it is to think that Neanderthals, Saxons, Romans, plesiosaurs, woolly mammoths and dodos will have all seen this moon too.
Already, I could see snow cover had retreated extensively. Most hillsides had shuffled into a piebald appearance. Birds entered the final rehearsals of their dawn recital. Shielded from the wind, the warming sun relaxed me like an unfurling fern. Spring’s campaign was gaining support up here too. For the outdoorsy, the Cairngorms might leave you quite dizzy with possibility. There is an endless amount of fun to be had here: trails to wander, peaks to climb, forests in which to bathe, tree roots over which to stumble. I was lucky to have time to spare that day, the following being the big one: #missionmountainhare.
Dumping my things in the only hotel open at the time, I surrendered to the hotspots. Aviemore has an excellent local bus service, which can whizz you around to most of the recommended sites. A walk above nearby Grantown gave me red squirrels, treecreepers2 and bullfinches. High above flat forested valleys, I followed the twisted bark of an ancient Scots pine with my hands. Age had hugged it into a stiff lean-to with the prevailing wind, where it now rests in a weathered, settled state of mind. With its reddish, gnarled bark and blue-green evergreen needles, Scots pine is the UK’s only native pine. Some have even made their way to the pebblebed heaths back home in Devon. Stretching up to 35 metres in height – with most of the leaves clustered towards the crown – these majestic native beauties can easily live for up to 700 years. Fondly known as ‘granny pines’, these ancient trees offer sweet sanctuary to fellow animal and plant rarities, including the pine marten, wildcat, crested tit and some orchids.
Beneath the trees, light dappled a loamy carpet of fallen needles, like the quivers of sunlight that reach a reef. From the classic (Instagrammable) perch of Farleitter Crag, Caledonian pine forest dominates, framing lochs that glint in the sun, as though coins in some enormous Earthly wishing well. I time-travelled through the extraordinary Abernethy Forest National Nature Reserve. Dense, ancient understorey hugged the path, its loamy carpet flexing beneath my feet. You see, this is how it was meant to be. This is a place that is meant to be felt.
Although now a ‘priority habitat’ under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan, the Cairngorms’ native pinewood is part of the remaining 1 per cent left in Scotland. Briefly mingling with the storyline of our Neolithic farmers 6,000 years ago, those who didn’t elope to the Orkney islands stayed and colonised, farming goats, sheep and cattle. The post-glacial retreat had tipped Scotland’s tree cover into an all-time high, approaching the climax of rewilding delirium: willow meadows full of grazing elk flanking rivers that host salmon and bears in a wholesome tussle, not far from beavers convening their wetland alliance. Deeper into the wooded margins and wild boar dodge prowling lynx and wolves; and dwarf birch, willow, hazel, aspen, alder, juniper, scrub and Scots pine fill complex gaps. Life at this time was brief, raw and unconfined.
Later centuries brought climatic shifts of colder, wetter weather. Peat bogs capitalised on areas of tree retreat. Treelines slipped down the hillside. Three thousand years ago, Scotland’s canopy was already undergoing deep fissure. Much commentary exists on the human fetish for tampering with trees in Scotland that occurred over the following years. Devastating mass clearances pleased agriculture, world wars, industry, deer stalking and grouse shooting. Faster-growing Sitka spruces outshone the pace of our native pines in this rush for timber.
In a 2015 interview in UK Hillwalking, the writer and conservationist George Monbiot conveyed a heavy heart as to the treeless state of the British uplands. He told us these places, ‘which would otherwise function as our great wildlife reserves … where hardly anyone lives … have even less wildlife than the places that are intensely habited and farmed’.
I had arranged to meet up with a mate of mine, James Shooter, a widely respected wildlife photographer and guide who I’ve gotten to know through my work at Beaver Trust. James lives just outside Aviemore and kindly offered to show me a favourite haunt of our mountain hare. Now I’ll come clean here – I hired a car for the day. You see, one of my intentions for this book was to create it with my mind consciously (and constantly) focused on low-carbon travel options. My ideal choice – carbon-neutral travel – is a whole other feat and frankly unrealistic with my budget and limited time. Travelling ‘the low-carbon way’ is about doing whatever we can to minimise our carbon footprint. With some wildlife, trying to get a guaranteed sighting within your only full day on their local patch requires a brief dual-carriageway stint followed by a 10-mile single-track road into a remote glen that’s well off the bus route. The social distancing guidelines still in place also ensured that carpooling with anyone outside my bubble was a total last resort.
Anyway, just outside the Cairngorms National Park, this glen lies among the spectacular Monadhliath Mountains. Not the only place you can spot mountain hares, but it’s home to one of the best-studied populations in Scotland (with the added treat of being part of a traditionally managed deer estate surrounded by grouse moorland).
As we laced boots and zipped up jackets, James half laughed as he confessed, ‘Between you and me, much of Scotland is ecologically buggered.’ I respected his candour. Increasingly, there’s no other way to describe the state of things. The rising 8 a.m. sun was beginning to unmask an impressively huge but sparse glacial valley. It looked worn, weathered and dry. I noticed the slip of the tree line, and how in this particular valley, intense grazing over the years has effectively destroyed any opportunity for new growth. Sparse birch framed the lowest thirds of the hillsides, and James told me how this indicated years’ worth of deer-browsing pressure. Lack of tree cover has exposed the river berms3 to erosion, destabilising banks and throwing the flow off-kilter. ‘What we’re seeing is the bare bones of the landscape,’ sighed James. ‘Imagine how stunning it would be with more birch…?’ The truth is, I couldn’t.
But I quickly realised there was also more to it. This particular estate is reducing its numbers of red deer in an admirable bid to rebalance the natural ecology. The restoration of relict scrub, lost tree cover and blanket bog is key to their plan. Leading by example, this estate demonstrates to other landowners that, yes, a landscape’s scar tissue may be brittle, but it can still provide a firm foundation for new growth.
We walked along a flat track towards the mountains, bedded with the kind of coarse grassland that has weathered many a gale. Feeling dizzy with joy for being back in Scotland, I imagined hares already clocking our movements. The sun grew in strength. It looked like the snow was melting before our eyes. A random rectangle of pine plantation remained. Rather ‘manscaped’, as it were. ‘So, yeah, we’ve had the best winter for 10 years,’ James said, squinting up at the sun as it caught the glen, ‘but it’s getting rarer – we should have loads of snow every year, but it’s just not happening any more.’
One of the things that is happening, however, or that was due to kick off around the time I visited, was the mountain hare breeding season. Baby hares (leverets) – usually one to three per litter – are expected to be up and about from March to July, meaning that February is a crucial time for a bit of Lepus tête-à-tête. Thus begins one of the most unmissable mating rituals in the animal kingdom: the hare box. Please welcome to the ring, our first competitor, the male mountain hare – the buck. As tends to be the case, he has realised his sexual peak in advance of his lady – the doe. Gone is his usual reserved, timid demeanour because a tidal surge of testosterone has breached the flood defences. All he can think about is dodging a well-placed hook from his (ideally) equally amorous doe and bagging a quick shag. But first, he must catch her.
Perhaps assuming that she wants to be chased, he reaches speeds of up to 40 miles per hour, so desperate is he in pursuit of a romp. But she is resolute, and I love her for it. This whole flirty catch-me-if-you-can situation can begin to grate on a doe – she’s got enough things on her plate as it is! And at the crucial moment, she is likely at the very end of her tether. The prospect of a cheeky interlude is the final straw for what has no doubt been a rather tiresome frolic, often with more than one buck. So she whips around, using her strong forepaws to flail and rebuff the buck’s advances. It’s an extraordinary courtship because where most species fight for a mate with members of the same sex – most often male to male – mountain hare boxing is almost always between males and females.
A video I once saw conveyed a particularly juicy exchange between a pair that likely belonged to the same population I was hoping to find with James. The unleashing of a rapid-fire of feet and forepaws reminded me of those trivial scraps between siblings. In our hares’ case, it’s not without cause, however, as the doe is usually communicating one of two things. She’s saying, ‘I am not ready to mate, kindly off you f@#k.’ Or she is assessing the buck’s agility and potential fitness as a father, testing him in a gruelling physical challenge. Safe to say, she will let him know if she likes what she sees. I appreciate the sense in it, given that female hares ovulate during sex, so pregnancy is pretty much guaranteed. Casual romps while hunting for ‘the one’ is not really an option for the doe unless she wants instant baggage. Either way, it’s thought that this entire saga gave rise to the phrase ‘mad as a March hare’, and I can see the value in bringing a little more of the doe’s well-meaning fury into modern dating culture.
Before I left home for the Cairngorms, I caught up with Dr Scott Newey, an animal ecologist from the acclaimed James Hutton Research Institute based in Scotland. Scott has spent the best part of the past 20 years working with mountain hares and a range of other upland species. He is no stranger to the mountain himself. His path started in mountaineering and outdoor education before meandering into animal population studies. As we spoke on Zoom, I pondered aloud to him whether the mountain hare was the epitome of his two passions. He laughed. ‘They are an amazing species, but on the mountain? They’re always happy when I’m at my wits’ end. I never personify the hares – they are absolutely their own thing.’
Teaming up with leading international researchers, Scott co-authored a remarkable paper for The Royal Society in 2020, exploring whether climate change is causing mountain hares to be the wrong colour. As we know, ‘phenology’ describes seasonal changes in the natural world and, in this case, refers to the colour shift in a mountain hare’s coat. Put simply, it just so happens that being white in winter amid an increasingly snowless, warming mountainscape is a bit of a problem.
I mentioned earlier that in Scotland, the mountain hare is now a ‘near threatened’ species. Scott’s research spotlights some unsettling truths. It presents a rare case study of climate change showing itself and offering examples of how it will affect wild animals. Thus far, this ‘climate change’ character has lingered in the corners, down side streets and alleyways, wearing dark glasses and generally being oh-so-incognito, wielding its power with a mere flick of the wrist and a crack of the neck. It’s only just warming up, as it were. But with mountain hares and this new research, we have at last been presented with an unlikely opportunity to glimpse our invisible assailant. You ready?
‘Between the 1950s and 2016, we estimated there are 35 days less snow cover in Scotland,’ Scott began. (That’s around half a day less snow each year for 60 consecutive years.) ‘Climate conditions are far less reliable and consistent than they used to be.’ The 35 snow days that Scotland has lost are the pinch point for our hares because it means their camouflage doesn’t work when they need it to. Instead, it epically fails them, creating a ‘mismatch’ that exposes white hares on a dark mountainside in a very real and perverse way. I hate it, yet I am fascinated. A short period of annual mismatch is, in fact, standard and to be expected. Each spring, the snow melts while the hare is still in a state of transition to its browner coat. But Scott’s paper presents the fear that mountain hares are now exposed for longer, beyond this seasonal norm. Their appearance on the melting hillsides is as blatant as a clumsy lie.
One thing also worth noting is that mountain hare populations in Scotland are incredibly valuable to science. As we know, not every species has the luxury of being subject to long-term scientific observation. I’m pretty sure every UK dung beetle would envy the dataset of mountain hares. Historical observations of wild mountain hares gathered between the 1950s and 1960s are thought to represent the most detailed survey of population fluctuations and changes in moult (coat) of any animal. Using these data, Scott and the team repeated the field studies conducted during this time to try and see whether the hares are adapting to warmer winters with less snow by changing the timing of their annual moult. They wanted to determine whether the hares are getting ahead of the climate game.
Dr Marketa Zimova has been studying snowshoe hares in the United States since 2009. Populations in Montana, especially, have been well-observed for their camouflage mismatch. This species, Lepus americanus, is more petite, but just as white as our Scottish mountain hares. An evolutionary ecologist at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Global Change Biology, Marketa investigates animal adaptation and rapid evolution in the face of climate change and habitat loss, and she led Scott’s study with Scottish mountain hares. She is another one of those young female scientists who just seems to smash the stereotype. I wish I had met her in person.
Over the phone, I asked Marketa what she thought of the results. ‘We were really surprised,’ she admitted, ‘because they just haven’t adapted! We were hoping the hares would have adjusted the timing of their colour moults to match the decreasing duration of snow cover, but they haven’t changed at all.’ This discovery does seem odd, given one of the main concerns is that white hares against a browning backdrop makes them (I imagine) about a billion times easier for golden eagles and other predators to spot – and catch. ‘Basically, we have seen strong effects of camouflage mismatch in snowshoe hares. A lot more of them die; they’re just so obvious, and the chance of being eaten increases quickly, by more than seven per cent when they are colour-mismatched. It’s crazy.’
Yet this consequence of camouflage mismatch is pure logic and is seen in similar mammals around the world. During our conversation, Marketa mentioned that she and other researchers are seeing the same trends in other species, such as Arctic foxes in Sweden and weasels in Poland. Such research presents more evidence of entirely different animals operating in completely separate systems subject to precisely the same – gigantic – climatic stressors. A growing chorus is chanting, ‘Maybe you saw me. Now you definitely see me’ across the northern hemisphere. The climate is changing too quickly – evolution is responding too slowly. It’s almost as though we need evolution itself to evolve. I suddenly feel very small.
Back in the glen, the silence that cloaked the valley was rare, and I knew it, lapping it up like some parched dog. Many rocks dotted the hillsides, most of them covered in lichen – a dead giveaway to brilliant air quality. Mountain hares can often look very much like these rocks. James told me how the off-white ones ‘are the buggers to spot’. To conserve energy, the hares will often huddle in a scrape of ground or ex-rabbit burrow, sitting still in a form and on the watch for golden eagles and other predators. ‘Yeah, so I’ve definitely stalked boulders in the past,’ James laughed as I excitedly pointed to a rock.
But then, two ears appeared behind a small tussock, sticking straight up like two glorious furry fingers at the world. Greetings, hare! Very well played. White and grey, greyer than I expected, but the spring moult can time with the hare box. I had finally remembered to borrow my dad’s ancient binoculars and put them to better use – raising them to see our rascal.
Impossibly furry, the grey guard hairs on the outer part of the main coat did offer a rather bluey tinge. Its almond-shaped eyes were half-closed, either shielded against the breeze or set in some steely attitude against eagles. Or, as I preferred to think, it was just waking up and feeling grumpy. It was bigger than I had expected, too, its long legs crimped underneath its plush coat. The hairs of a hare’s main pelage are hollow, trapping air like the fibres in our synthetic insulation jackets. Below this, fine and downy fur is tightly knitted like woven silk, offering enviable warmth. There was no denying I had an immediate crush.
One person who has arguably spent more time with the hares around the Cairngorms than anyone else in Britain is wildlife photographer Andy Howard, author of The Secret Life of the Mountain Hare. Along with a few other professional photographers (‘Team Hare’), Andy has uncovered some astonishing insights into these animals simply by being patient. Predicting the yawns, stretches and toilet breaks are all part of his skillset (for hares, that is).
Andy’s knowledge has been influential to scientists like Scott and Marketa. For a start, Andy’s incomparable photographic library of the hares over the years challenged common thinking that mountain hares change their pelage twice a year. Intrigued, I called him when I returned from Scotland. ‘Science rarely collects photographs,’ he commented, ‘but through being little old me with my camera, I support evidence showing they moult three times a year.’ Despite debate continuing around whether a third moult had officially ‘stopped’, the potential for mountain hares to have winter, spring/summer and autumnal coats is now accepted scientific knowledge. A neat little capsule wardrobe. Lovely.
I was curious to hear what 10 years of sitting in freezing conditions behind the lens had done for Andy, save from yielding some of the most stunning portraits of these animals taken to date. ‘Well, they’re the most boring animals in the world and also the most entertaining,’ he continued. ‘It’s like going to a party, and you go into a room of strangers, and you don’t know anybody. But then, over a period in the evening, you get to know the ones you like, the ones with the best characters, the jokers, the ones you want to spend time with. It’s the same with hares. Oh, I also talk to them, of course. For hours.’ As someone who has grown up in relatively constant dialogue with myself, my stuffed animals or the real pet animals that have come and gone over the years, I smiled at this rather outlandish declaration of kinship with a fellow mammal. ‘Being with the hares is spiritual … there’s no doubt about it.’ You know what? I get it. After all, data, regressions and hypotheses aside, isn’t that what it’s all about?
We hiked to the snowline and over the peaks, an offshoot of the river carving a deep gully to our left – one hare down, apparently many to go. I wanted more. Having been lucky enough for mountains to form a regular part of my life, my reunion with mountains was overdue. On an adjoining peak, a trio of red stags caught our scent, their big, beautiful heads reading our intentions. No doubt they had already seen us while we were still faffing around on the valley floor.
It’s no secret that mountain hares are a favourite snack for the golden eagle. It just so happened that local birders revere the glen we were exploring as a top spot for raptors. James recalled how an eagle once flew high overhead, and he could see the hare’s ears twitching, as though they were its long-distance radar detecting the enemy before visual contact. Golden eagles are somewhat re-staking their protagonist claim in some regions of the Monadhliath Mountains, soaring the skies in their highest numbers for more than a century, according to the RSPB.
A chaotic and strained mix of illegal raptor persecution and driven grouse shoot management has been the leading cause of eagle downfall. Despite the boost being tentative, the stabilisation of any top predator following years of decline is always, always good news. Life is dead without prey. ‘Numbers are more abundant now,’ said James, ‘but if we want eagles to stay, ideally, we need more hares in the mix.’
Whether current hare numbers are sufficiently healthy to support other Highland species remains to be seen. Confusing, I know, to fear for the hare’s life amid diminishing snow, yet accept that they are part of a larger chain that also needs feeding. To date, there has been a notable lack of dedicated monitoring of the actual population of Scottish mountain hares. But as I write, a new national survey of mountain hares has just launched. One method of ‘night-time counting’ aims to observe hares at their most active. The Mammal Society’s ‘Mammal Mapper’ app encourages the public (a surprisingly helpful cohort to enlist!) to record any hares they see while walking in Scotland. Both endeavours will undoubtedly offer invaluable insight into where they are, where they are not and therefore, how worried we ought to be.
Back on the hill, the wind whipped us into shape, and all this eagle banter suddenly yielded not one but two. As luck would have it, here was the bird I had only ever read about. With a territory as large as 200 square kilometres to maintain, a sighting felt as overwhelming as I imagine it would be to stand in the same room as Barack Obama (or any of the Hemsworth brothers). Wingspans of more than 2 metres negate the need for binoculars – with this bird, the naked eye is finally enough. ‘Look at the WINGS on it … gawwd!!’, we shouted, so massive and black it was against the blue sky, soaring over infinite ground, yet barely a wing beat to show for it. Another eagle swooped into view. Suddenly, a tiny arrow of a kestrel darted underneath, plunging all three beautiful beasts into the same frame. I could be anyone, nature lover or total agnostic, and still want this scene tattooed onto my retinas with immediate effect.
Right. Driven grouse shooting. A topic I’ve avoided that would be unwise to dismiss. Scotland is rare in that while its climate and biodiversity are changing, much of its land-use has been slow to catch up. Digest this: more than half of Scotland is owned by just 500 people, representing possibly the most blatantly unequal land ownership of any modern nation in the world. For nearly 800 years, most of Scotland existed as a ‘feudal’ land, which essentially means land with a ‘fee’. A hierarchical jungle of land tenure was held initially by Scottish kings and powerful tartaned clans. You might be surprised to learn that the Land Reform Act only abolished this ancient system in 2003. A few years and several more acts later, and ‘the land thing’ in Scotland remains murky. Yes, it’s easier now for communities to have a say in who and what goes where, but matching land plots with their rightful owners is still proving a throbbing headache. Tetra Pak founders hobnob alongside the heir of Lego. It appears that everyone and their mums would like a dollop of Scotland.
Since the 1880s, driven grouse shooting has become quite the August hobby among the well-to-do. I mentioned that the number of mountain hares is uncertain in Scotland, but some hares are doing pretty well in areas with grouse shoots. Strange. I probed Scott’s brain: ‘It’s hard to answer … but the circumstances we have for the hares are really unusual.’ He explained that the hares in boreal Scandinavia occur at low densities – say two to six hares per square kilometre. ‘But on heather moorland managed for grouse shooting, we can have two hundred or more hares per square kilometre at times,’ he said. Well then. Why all the fuss about this camouflage mismatch? Surely we can just pack up and go home if there are plenty of hares to go around?
I wish it were that simple. Landowners and gamekeepers manage around 15 per cent of Scotland for grouse shooting, and large areas within that remain vastly unregulated. More comprehensive licensing schemes from the Scottish government are a way off yet. Two types of shoot exist: ‘walked-up’ – with four to eight guns and dogs to flush the birds out. Then we have the more intensive ‘driven’ shoots – bigger, ‘better’, more boujie. Strangely, our hares can be more associated with these. Regular moorland management such as heather burning and predator control have afforded hares respite from typical (um, natural) hindrances like a hungry fox. Save for the odd golden eagle, hares on grouse moors are somewhat spared the harshness of a genuinely wild mountainside. Living on a grouse moor is their own rather stuffy national park. I can’t help feeling like it’s giving us all a false sense of security.
Before we get into all that, I must mention a big thing that’s been happening to hares in the past few decades. Cited as some sort of parasitic ‘middleman’ between grouse and deer, hares host the ticks that spread the ‘louping ill’ virus to grouse. Despite limited evidence to justify these actions, thousands of hares have been shot and killed. Ticks! BANG! The heather is suffering! BANG! Lovely white fur … also BANG! People killed an estimated 33,500 hares in 2016–17. Let’s just acknowledge that this is one of the most complex and heated conservation debates in the British Isles. People have also justified hares ‘overgrazing’ as reason enough to shoot. ‘Of course, herbivores occurring at such density is going to have an effect on the landscape,’ Scott mused, ‘but our work suggests that the annual biomass production of a healthy moorland far outweighs what a very high population density of hares can remove through their grazing.’ Muse indeed.
Soon the public got wind of the fact that the mountain hare was at the mercy of the gun – and they weren’t having any of it. During my research for this chapter, I quickly realised that Keeping Up with the Hares may well replace Keeping Up with the Kardashians, their legislative merry-go-round being the new series to binge. (Netflix, take note.) It’s as much of a social conflict as it is a wildlife one. I’m finding it confusing and am slightly drowning in the nuance. Still, I think the main takeaway is this: finally, a shiny, new ‘protected’ status for mountain hares now exists throughout Scotland, in a late amendment suddenly introduced to Scottish Parliament by the Scottish Green Party in autumn 2020. As serendipity would have it, this bill came into play the day I returned from the Cairngorms. And, as of June 2021, NatureScot announced that licences could only be granted to applicants for specific purposes, excluding the sport shooting of mountain hares. About bloody time.
Midday and the sun felt as fearless as we did. Full of vim, we began a new climb up a track used for walked-up grouse shoots. Red grouse frisked among the heather, their hilarious cackles punctuating the cool air. Mating season was creeping up on them too. Grouse butts, in which shooters could conceal themselves, were stationed at regular intervals around the track. Cresting the hill, the white peaked meringue of the Cairngorm range rose in the distance. Snow was more stubborn here, occasionally pulling me, legs flailing, into its soft drifts – a stark contrast to the southern hills which rose above a bare, snowless brown-scape. Years of controlled cyclical heather burning have tessellated this view. Naturally, tiger bread was the first likeness that came to my mind. Breakfast felt a long time ago. ‘Peat “hags”,’ James said grimly. ‘That’s how we describe the erosion that can be caused by overgrazing or burning, exposing the peat to the elements … often drying it out.’ As I looked around, too many hills had this pattern – they looked like a monoculture of tectonic plates shifting against forces too enormous to resist.
Peat is something we do not want to muck about with. Even though it stores more than 3 million tonnes of carbon, we have sacrificed British peatlands for garden compost, forestry, grazing, drainage and this pretentious gamebird pursuit. A window of legal burning occurs annually between October and April as part of moorland management. However, the fact remains that this consistent burning of heather, and subsequent peatland erosion, is increasing by more than 10 per cent a year. Necessary? Hugely debatable. Its future? Uncertain. Release of carbon? Guaranteed. For peat’s sake, Scotland’s peat alone harbours around 25 times more carbon than all plants across the UK – including trees. I’ll leave it there.
Another hare. This time, impossibly white – starched to perfection. ‘Daz-white’, they call it. Several beats ahead of us, it darted across the path, then hopped behind the grouse butts. Make no mistake; these guys are rapid when they want to be. Before long, several more hares appeared, each as pure as the next. They were like a row of lightbulbs beaming across a dark land, flashing some sort of rudimentary signal we’re grappling with decoding. I could see one seated in a furry little ball, shining like the North Star. Four, five, six. The thing is, I couldn’t stop seeing them. As if they’re now shouting, ‘Here! I’m over HERE! Hare I am! It is I!’ Much as I adored watching them, I so wished to be mistaken. Winter shouldn’t look like this.
I wrote earlier of the surprise with which Marketa and Scott received the results of their study, so ready were they to find that hares were adapting to diminishing snow. As controversial as driven grouse moor management has been, the fact remains that we may not have as many hares in Scotland without it. Run with me. We know now that controlled burning and predator control are the primary tools in a gamekeeper’s toolkit to ensure happy, plump grouse and happy (plump?) clientele. Scott explained, ‘the hares seem to actually benefit from predator control of corvids, foxes, stoats and weasels, but because of this, we don’t really know how important natural predation is to mountain hares in these areas’. He described how hares persist at lower densities in places where natural predator-prey dynamics are not tampered with. Nature’s original intention? ‘Our studies of hares on grouse moors are thus confounded – it’s a real challenge for science.’
Perhaps this all might become clearer if we return to Marketa and our American hares. ‘Don’t forget that snowshoe hares still have a full predator system in place: communities of lynx, foxes, coyotes, weasels, birds of prey,’ Marketa reminded me, ‘so as soon as a mismatch of camouflage happens, the chance of being eaten increases quickly.’ So, what’s happening on grouse moors in Scotland is that we’re meddling with their potential to evolve because by removing the majority of their predators, we are releasing a vital selection pressure that would, in theory, trigger an evolutionary answer to the problem of sticking out. Nature made mountain hares the right colour for each season, but our meddling has painted their fur in an unseasonal hue, and now hares are unwittingly wearing the wrong shade. Oh, honey.
‘It’s the most likely explanation for why they have not evolved to match the ‘new’ shorter snow seasons,’ Marketa admitted. She considered how wonderful it would be if we reintroduced more golden eagles and other key predators that have been lost across much of the Highlands. But this could be bad news for the hares, as predators will find them more often. ‘To restore natural systems successfully, we must first understand all the players in the game.’ Holistic with a capital ‘H’.
As we sometimes see demonstrated by a particular demographic in their late 30s, humans enjoy experimenting with artifice. Botox and cosmetic surgery might be a ploy to defy ageing, but grouse moorland predator control feels like a smokescreen disguising a much harsher truth. Selection for an advantageous trait – which in the mountain hare’s case would presumably be for an alternative to winter white – is more likely to lead to an evolutionary shift in large, connected populations. We want this to happen.
I asked Marketa about pace. ‘Everything used to happen a lot slower – things had time to adapt. Stressors have always existed, but now …’ she sounded burdened, ‘there is rapid climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, overexploitation, invasive species … it’s an onslaught.’ Playing with nature this way risks contaminating evolution while denying animals like the mountain hare the chance to fight back and move forward. As the master puppeteer at the top of the food chain, we feed our hunger while fuelling a fire we don’t know how to extinguish. A dangerous combination? But the thing is, operating in the short term is just too bloody convenient. ‘Nah, I’ll be gone by the time things get bad!’ we say. But, mate – what if you’re not?
Thinking back to some of the hares, especially the sitters, they almost looked like they couldn’t care less – very much a ‘so what?’ sort of vibe. That frustrated me enormously. Like, they’re not even trying to sort out the fact that they stick out like an LED bulb! But maybe it’s not a problem for them. Evolution is energetically costly and must be worth it for a species to stick around in the long run. Humans would never have bothered to walk upright if it wouldn’t have facilitated world domination. Kim Kardashian wouldn’t spend an average of £130,000 a month on herself if it didn’t help her body break the internet. For Scottish mountain hares, their mismatch in the contrived world of a managed moorland might not threaten their survival. We know that their vulnerability to predation may increase. Unfortunately, plans to restructure Scotland’s relict predator community (lynx and wolves) encounter repeated hurdles. Given the sluggish rate at which Scotland has reformed its land use, will we live to see actual predation of mountain hares? I’m not so sure.
But we mustn’t underestimate mountain hares as a species either. ‘We know from other studies that evolution can rapidly take effect when the need arises,’ said Scott. Take the peppered moth, for instance. When industrial pollution killed the lichen off many trees, the moth’s rare dark morph suddenly became well-adapted, more camouflaged against these new, sooty backdrops. Within seven years, 98 per cent of Manchester’s population of peppered moths were black.
‘And you know,’ Scott added, ‘mountain hares have been around for tens of thousands of years – with huge climatic changes to deal with during that time – so they must be fairly resilient.’ Indeed they must, because photographer Andy has noticed in the past six years that the hares in the Monadhliath Mountains had become greyer, more mottled than the ‘Daz-white’ ones free of grouse moors. Although it’s not clear yet whether the winter grey coat has a genetic basis, if greyer hares end up surviving, then we might see a genetically darker, more durable local population emerge. I hope so.
I had mixed emotions at this point. On the one hand, I fear that the colour error in mountain hares runs much deeper (and is potentially more gangrenous) than a surface wound, but on the other, this all offers a constructive wake-up call. Mountain hares aren’t necessarily losing out. ‘For me, it’s a chance to promote an awareness of climate change,’ smiled Marketa. ‘I’m not losing hope. I don’t think this study or other work means that those species are doomed – it’s important to consider that – but we must put it out there as an example of what could go wrong if we don’t act to mitigate climate change.’ Yesss.
Dr Isla Hodgson works at the University of Stirling and is a leading expert in Scotland’s human/wildlife conflict management. Her years of working directly with gamekeepers on conflict resolution have uncovered an increasing desire for conservation. ‘Conflicts between gamekeepers and conservationists are getting increasingly entrenched,’ she told me, ‘but one shared value is a respect for the land and its wildlife, including the mountain hare. That must be our starting point for a more constructive dialogue.’ Over the years, there have been too many reasons to do nothing – too many opportunities for delay. ‘But we don’t have time for it,’ Isla added quickly, ‘climate change is right there at our door. Right now. We need to instil a sense of urgency in the day-to-day, but in a way that doesn’t fuel tension.’
Hopeful change is happening. March 2021 saw the Scottish government announce a £250 million fund to restore bruised peatlands over 10 years. Alongside this came a licensing scheme for grouse moorland burning amid whispers of banning this practice for good. A vision to expand national tree cover across the country by 21 per cent is the fund’s goal for 2032. If you showed a picture of a mountain hare in its winter white to a random Brit on the street, I reckon there’s a good chance they would recognise it. Public knowledge of mountain hares has grown, and we need to be encouraged by this. After all, the hare is so blended with British folklore, religion, land and legend. Again, I genuinely believe that we love hares – hares that face a slew of environmental stressors, some humanmade, others as raw as rain. Hares are showing us what’s happening. The cloak is off, and we can finally see climate change for what it is and pinch the blueprint of its Grand Plan if we get in there quickly. Whether it knows it or not, our mountain hare is serving an era and has become a totem for change. I find it unbelievably cool, but I’m also a frightened little mole.
I concluded my chronicles with the mountain hare with some takeaway pizza washed down with a beer as I looked across a darkening Loch Morlich. Water as black as ink softly lapped the shore. White mountaintops flushed salmon pink, their summits reflecting intense, isolated spots of sun. It looked like stage lighting. Every dip, rise and fall of the ridges were naked in this light. I was enjoying a private show. Chilly air descended a breathless sky. A few swigs of beer in, and I began to question whether animals have conscious thought.
Further swigs had me asking a nearby tree whether it knows why the seasons are getting all messed up. Maybe our mountain hare knows. By the end of the bottle, I squinted my eyes tight shut as though capturing the scene, already missing it. Agh. This always happens.
Seven hares and two golden eagles were an excellent insurance policy against the next trip, though, because the following month, I was to stray off at a new tangent, looking for a bird that tries its best to evade all observation and generally hates people. Ideal. Wish me luck.
Notes
1 Snow bunting: a gorgeous little bird; breeds on bare high mountaintops; very scarce. Ptarmigan: (silent ‘p’), a resident highland grouse. Capercaillie: huge woodland grouse; native to Scottish pine wood; at severe risk of extinction.
2 Not, as I once thought, a type of stubborn poison ivy. It’s a tiny bird with a curved bill, which spirals up trunks, feeding on insects.
3 A term to describe a sandy or gravely ridge parallel to a river’s shoreline. Or, if you’re a mountain biker, you’ll be familiar with whipping around dusty berms (sharp, angled corners) as you shred those trails and #sendit.