Spot the March hares with Wirral’s country rangers

Feb 24 2010 by Jade Wright, Birkenhead News

AS March begins next week, the lengthening daylight allows us a glimpse of one of the country’s most magical wildlife spectacles - boxing hares.

The annual Mad March Hares event at Wirral Country Park will once again set off across the farmland of West Wirral to seek out boxing Brown Hares.

Wrap up warm and bring your binoculars for your ringside seat.

These normally languid and timid herbivores transform into bullying bruisers as they fight it out among the cowslips.

To witness a joust on a fresh, spring dawn is a startling and dramatic experience.

March and April offer one of the best opportunities of catching up with these shrunken, bar-room brawlers in action.

The Celts believed their goddess Eostre turned into a hare at full moon, and the Romans saw the animal as an emblem of fertility, lust, rampant growth and excess.

Lewis Carroll’s Mad March Hare stalks the pages of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and reveals the continuing influence the animal exerts over our literature.

The event runs on March 13 from 6.30- 8.30am at Wirral Country Park Visitor Centre, Station Road, Thurstaston.

The morning is suitable for all the family to enjoy. Sorry no dogs. Booking essential on 0151-648-4371 or email wirralcountrypark@wirral.gov.uk