Spring's Progress

[Larry Ricker]

Regardless of the snow showers today, Spring is showing signs of progress, especially with regard to the color changes of the Snowshoe Hare.  The first attached photo shows one of them on April 15 while the others were all taken yesterday (April 27) when, presumably, the 1st individual brought a friend along.  The friend was a bit skittish and didn't stay still or for very long.  Meanwhile, hare #1 helped weed our yard :D and then posed very nicely for me.  

It seems like I'm seeing the hares more frequently this year.  Are there actually more of them or am I just being more observant?

Larry Ricker

LHR Images

pho...@lhrimages.com

www.lhrimages.com

[Mary M White / Charles R Neil]

In Embarrass, we seemed to have a healthy population of snowshoe hares judged by their tracks soon after the first snowfalls last November. By late winter, however, their tracks were rarely seen when skiing our three miles of trails around here. I hope it's due to the usual up and down cycles of hare population.  But the increase of wolf and fox tracks around here as winter progressed makes me think that predation was at least part of the reason for the decline of hares here. 

Chuck Neil

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