2


Primroses need plenty of sunlight to flower and set seed, whether in woodland, before trees are in leaf, or in coastal grasslands.


3


The 11 fossil trees in Glasgow’s Victoria Park would have stood about 30 metres (98 feet) tall when they were alive in an ancient grove.


4


Brown hares rely on good eyesight and keen hearing to stay alert for predators and can run at up to 70 km/h (43 mph) to avoid danger.


4


Box clever


Lengthening days seem to push a button in a brown hare’s brain. It changes from a shy creature to something of an extrovert. ‘Boxing’, during which two animals rise up and pummel paws and forelegs in an open field, is the most dramatic display of a brown hare’s spring fever. These contests often result from a female repelling the advances of a male (or testing his mettle), rather than from male-to-male battles. Such vigorous mating-season antics are doubtless why hares, for much longer than the proverbial bunny, have had an association with Easter. The Angles, who settled in the Lothians in the late 7th century, had a fertility goddess called ‘Eostre’, who may have had hares as attendants. Whether or not that was true, fields in places fringing Edinburgh and beyond – including the skirts of the Pentland Hills – are still good places to look for hares. So too is Fife, which, together with the Lothians, is thought to be home to more brown hares than other parts of Scotland.


Web tip:


download.edinburgh.gov.uk/ biodiversity/025_Brown_Hare.pdf www.mammal.org.uk/ and search for ‘brown hare’


www.snh.gov.uk 7


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