Mountain hare (Lepus timidus)

Fleet of foot in ice and snow, the mountain hare is made for survival in wind-blasted northern uplands,is one of several of our native species that change into white costume for the winter (others include the ptarmigan and stoat). All is fine when snow is guaranteed, but in years or locations without snowfall, our hare becomes easy prey for a hungry fox or eagle, standing out as a bright smudge against the tweedy browns of the moors. In fact, she wears a range of seasonal coats: white for winter (with black-tipped ears), mottled white and brown in the snow-melt season of spring and grey-brown in summer-evolution having attuned moulting to the calendar's daylight hours. Smaller than its lowland cousin and with shorter ears, the mountain hare's diet is composed of the heather, bilberries, birches and crouching willows of its acidic and nutrient-poor homeland.