How does the hare prepare for winter, what does it do to survive?

Remember how it was sung in one famous children'ssong: "Trouser-bunny gray under the Christmas tree galloped"? Everything would be fine, but the gray hare under the winter tree can not jump well! After all, the cold season in our region involves a certain preparation for it ...

By the way, how is the hare getting ready for winter? As you could guess, it all starts with molting.

It begins in September, continuing exactly until the momentloss of the first snow. The hare is older, the faster it passes through this process. In old and weakened animals molting is also prolonged, sometimes passing through December. For a very long time the old summer fur remains in the eye area.

Since the hare is preparing for the winter thoroughly, it is not only the change of the fur coat that is not the only thing.

Note that the whites and the hares are very differenttheir "winter" behavior. They are similar only in that, contrary to the generally accepted opinion, hares do not run all day like scalded, but dig quite well-placed burrows in the snow.

The Rusaks choose places for equipping thelowlands, closed from the wind. If the snow is deep, then they dig burrows, the length of which often exceeds two meters. Especially for this, by the winter on their paws grow thick fur brushes, with which the hares lead their digging.

Belyaki are not so skilled in digging matters, and therefore dig out shelters no longer than one and a half meters.

The peculiarity of them is that hares of this speciesuse their wide paws not so much for digging as for tamping snow: unlike the hare they do not throw it out, which makes predation difficult for predators to find them.

But as the hare prepares for the winter, when it comes tomatters of subsistence? There is nothing special to say: unlike the same protein, long-grain stocks do not rely on "brushes" on their paws, which digs up food, but on their teeth, which curse gardeners.

Do you remember how the trunks of fruit trees are smeared with lime? This is done just to protect against hares.

As soon as the deep snow falls, they pass overon food by young shoots of trees. They most readily eat maple, aspen and fruit, for which they are not so fond of gardening. On the birch pass only in the case of especially severe winters, when nothing else can be obtained.

Since the hare is preparing for the winter, not creating reserves, it is necessary for him at this time tight. Metabolism of eared at this time is accelerated, since it takes a lot of energy to maintain heat.

Because of this, the hare is forced to eat practicallyall the time. That is why in the winter "cowardly" rabbits easily go on contact with a person, coming close to his home. Very often they even make their burrows in stacks of hay harvested from the summer, providing themselves with shelter and food for the whole winter.

We did not accidentally write "cowardly" in quotes, since the hare does not suffer from lack of courage in the winter in the forest. Let us cite one obvious case.

In 1965, one hunter killed a rabbit that had fled to a marshy lowland. There he was hobbled by a hungry hawk. Ushasty escaped from him, taking a course in a clean field.

There he was attacked by a fox, from which the hare fled,sharply turning to the village. But on this, his adventure is not over! There he was attacked by crows, from whom he disappeared, huddled under a barn belonging to the very hunter who had been following the trail all along. Of course, he did not kill such a brave eared person.

So you have learned how the hare prepares for the winter, and what are the features of his behavior during this period.

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