It’s been a busy year for the Hares on Havergate, they’ve had a visit from the BBC, seen more people (in terms of visitors) than ever before but thankfully, this seems to have had no impact on the population on the island.
It’s the traditional survey season opener on Havergate! The annual Hare transect. Our actual interaction with the Hares is relatively limited, we keep an eye on their health and wellbeing to ensure nothing is going badly wrong with them but they are one of those species that generally benefits from being left alone to live their lives with little active management involved.
Despite me saying this, there had been a little concern about the population of recent, especially back in 2010 when we had a bad die off of seemingly healthy adults. The reason behind this never became clear, European brown Hare disease was a possibility, past colleagues of mine had recorded the presence of a liver fluke that was present so they believed due to high salt diet intake in their diet also the Hares seem to have a high parasite load (ticks) this can over time cause a weakening of the immune system especially in younger animals.
In the last few years maybe all of the above factors had meant the population had seemed to be in slight decline. In 2010, the island supported 29 individuals, 2011 25 and in 2012, 22.
I’m sure I have mentioned this before but the transect is not an exact count, we can never be exactly certain that we have not counted the same individual twice or missed some as we make our way up the island. However, by repeating the survey and using the same methodology each year we can ensure we build up what is called a population index.
This year, the volunteers and I conducted the transect on a cold May morning, despite not being very optimistic the count went very well with 27 individuals recorded across the island, an increase of 5 from the previous year. It is also the highest total since 2010 and the first increase since I started conducting the counts in 2010.
Just like the fall in population for the last few years, the reason for the increase is unclear. However, this is very much good news for the Hares.
Happy Hares on Havergate. Courtesy of Matt Guillatt, NT
And so, we move on from Hares and start to look towards the breeding birds. It’s been a slow start to the season with birds slow to get too egg laying stage. Hopefully, as the temperature increases birds will catch up. Aside from the vast selection of gulls on the island, they’ve been a few waders including bar tailed godwits, ringed plovers and greenshanks on the move, spoonbills have been regular with one group staying around for a week or so.