I’m travelling to Great Britain in a couple weeks and I want to see and photograph brown/mountain hares while I’m there. Are they common throughout the countryside? Are there any particular areas of the country with high abundance? I’ll be as far south as Salisbury and as far north as Inverness. I can check iNat for places with many obvs but I wanted to see if anyone with experience had advice on seeing them.
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Brown hares are pretty common, although they have been affected by some diseases and are sadly sometimes illegally persecuted. Spring is the best time to see them as they sit around in groups, and boxing is amazing to watch. Rest of the year they are mostly solitary, and seeing one is a bit unpredictable. I used to live in Cambridge and there were lots near there, probably more than around here in Suffolk, although there are quite a few here.
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NBN Atlas suggests you would be unlucky not to be in the right place:
https://species.nbnatlas.org/species/NHMSYS0000080218
But they are rarer than they used to be. Lowland farmland with a mixture of arable and pasture are probably your best bet, so most counties in the lowlands. They are quite plentiful where I used to live in intensively farmed North Lincolnshire.
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