What do hares eat is not an idle question. Knowing what the scythe eats makes it much easier to track it. To do this, it is enough to pay attention to what is around you on the hunting grounds. By lying in wait for an animal near feeding areas, you can quite count on a successful hunt. But different types Hares - hare, hare - have their own characteristics in food preferences. Find out what they eat wild hares V natural environment habitats, and you will understand how to find them.
There are two main types of hares found in Russia: the hare and the hare. There is also a hare-cuff, a cross between the first two, but in separate species it is not isolated, so we will talk about the feeding habits of hare and hare.
What does the hare eat?
The hare is a large hare, sometimes reaching 70 cm in length and weighing up to 7 kg. Its color changes slightly with the season: from red skin in summer to light brown in winter. Its main habitats are open area: steppe, fields, meadows. IN summer period The main food of the hare is fresh and juicy meadow grass. Clover, dandelion, chicory - wild herbs contain both liquid and nutrients. They attract the oblique and cultivated plants: He happily wanders into vegetable and grain fields.
When winter comes, it is more difficult for the scythe to get food, and it feeds on dry grass from under the snow, seeds and the softest bark deciduous trees: birch, linden, aspen. Hunger forces them to enter their territories Agriculture, where they can find winter crops, remains of vegetables and grains in the fields, and haystacks. Sometimes hares even enter residential areas to gnaw on the bark fruit trees in the gardens.
Belyak a little smaller in size than the hare, it reaches 60 cm in length and usually weighs up to 5 kg. This animal completely changes color for the winter: snowy time years, its skin becomes pure white, which is excellent for camouflage. It is considered a forest animal, living mainly in forest areas. This determines their type of nutrition: in different time year they eat what is available in the forest.
In spring, white hare eat young shoots of bushes and trees. When the first spring grass begins to appear, hares are easy to find in the clearings covered with it. In the summer, berries are added to the diet of obliques, and sometimes they also eat some mushrooms. In autumn, when the grass gradually dries out, the animal switches to small branch food and bark. To understand how to find a hare in the forest, you can focus on their preferred tree species. In the cold season, their food source can be:
- aspen,
- alder,
- birch,
- maple,
- Rowan.
Willow forests become a place where it is easy to meet hare. Although the white hare lives mainly in the forest, hunger forces him to go out into the winter, where he can get the desired food from under the snow.
Where to look for a hare
Knowing about the listed food preferences of hares, it is easier to plan a hare hunt at any time of the year. For example, in winter you can track a hare from the field where it feeds on winter crops, leaving many “fat” traces. In spring, you can find scythes in fields where winter crops begin to sprout after the snow melts, and in forest clearings with the first grass. In summer - in meadows with lush weeds and in fields with agricultural plantings. And in late autumn, you can focus on haystacks, which attract both hare and hare.
Hares They are not rodents, as we often think, and they are not actually that harmless. This mammal shows aggression when threatened. We know about the white hare from fairy tales, but we remember little, what are the differences and similarities between hare and hare. Why are they so confused? Let's figure it out together, starting with the characteristics.
Description of the hare
Hare body length 68-70 cm, despite the fact that the body itself is slender and the sides are compressed. Weight can reach 7 kg! main feature – wedge-shaped ears, growing from 9 to 15 cm. It is thanks to long ears, hares have well-developed hearing, vision and a weaker sense of smell. Hind limbs They have long feet; in case of danger, their speed reaches 80 km/h. A sudden change in direction puts predators into a stupor; they climb slopes well, but go back down head over heels. Hare fur rough, but very warm, the color depends on the season of the year. In winter, only the hare wears completely white fur, which is where it got its name; in summer, its color is gray. And only the tips of the ears remain dark in color, which looks very beautiful. Hare lifespan 5 years, but the female can live up to 9, in in some cases, hares live up to 12-14 years.
How does a white hare differ from a brown hare?
Because many of us are confused hare and hare, we will tell you about the similarities and differences between these hares.
Similarities:
1. Both hares
2. Lead a sedentary lifestyle
3. Gray fur in summer
4. They eat only plant foods.
5. They don’t stock up for the winter.
Differences:
1. The brown hare is larger in size
2. The hare is completely white in winter, only the tips of the ears remain dark, and the hare only becomes lighter.
3. The hare lives only in the forest, while the hare lives in gardens, meadows, steppes, and arable lands
4. The hare has wide paws adapted to the snow
5. The hare's ears are noticeably shorter than those of the hare, and they are colored with a dark dot
6. The hare has wavy fur, the hare has smooth fur
7. The hind legs of the hare are much shorter than those of the hare
8. The hare has a wedge-shaped and long tail, the hare has a short and rounded tail.
9. In winter, the hare feeds on aspen and willow, while the hare eats oak and maple bark
FOOD AND HABITAT OF THE BLACK HARE
What does a hare eat?
Undoubtedly, the hare's nutrition depends depending on the time of year. In winter, for example, they cause extreme damage to trees and shrubs by feeding on their bark. They also dig up crops in the snow. But a hare cannot be called a vegetarian! IN northern regions discovered when hares attacked partridges.
In summer time hare eats various plants like clover, dandelions and many other herbs. Branches and leaves of young trees and shoots of bushes are perfect. It is unlikely that a hare refuses vegetables, especially when located near villages where you can profit from cabbage and carrots.
Where does the white hare live?
Where do our fairy-tale creatures live?
The White Hare has spread almost all over Russia! But it can also be found in different countries our world, for example in Ireland, Mongolia, Northern Europe and South America. Belyaka Can't be confused with anyone! Yes Yes! After all, only he dresses in all white in winter. Hares live in open forest and steppe landscapes, in fields and meadows, on forest edges. They do not go deep into the forest, preferring to live close to people, because there is something to profit from there. They are active in the evening and at night, but during the day they sit out in their burrows.
VIDEO: FOREST TALES ABOUT THE BLACK HARE
IN THIS VIDEO YOU WILL LEARN A LOT OF USEFUL AND INTERESTING ABOUT THE BLACK HARE, AND YOU CAN ALSO SHOW THIS TRANSMISSION TO CHILDREN
Leo Tolstoy "Rusak"
The brown hare lived in winter near the village. When night came, he raised one ear and listened; then he picked up the other one, moved his whiskers, sniffed it and sat down on his hind legs. Then he jumped again and again in the deep snow and again sat down on his hind legs and began to look around. Nothing was visible from all sides except snow. The snow lay in waves and glittered like sugar. There was frosty steam above the hare's head, and through this steam large bright stars could be seen.
The hare had to cross high road to come to the familiar threshing floor. On the high road you could hear the squealing of runners, the snorting of horses, and the creaking of chairs in the sleigh.
The hare stopped again near the road. The men walked next to the sleigh with the collars of their caftans raised. Their faces were barely visible. Their beards, mustaches, and eyelashes were white. Steam came out of their mouths and noses. Their horses were sweaty, and frost stuck to the sweat. The horses jostled in the collars, dived, and surfaced in potholes. The men caught up, overtook, and beat the horses with whips. Two old men walked side by side, and one told the other how his horse was stolen.
When the convoy passed, the hare crossed the road and walked lightly to the threshing floor; The little dog from the convoy saw a hare. She barked and ran after him. The hare galloped to the threshing floor on Saturday; the hare was held by suboi, and the dog got stuck in the snow on the tenth jump and stopped. Then the hare also stopped and sat on hind legs and slowly went to the threshing floor. On the way, he met two birds with one stone in the greens. They fed and played. The hare played with his comrades, dug with them in the frosty snow, ate winter crops and moved on. Everything in the village was quiet, the lights were extinguished. All you could hear was the crying of a child in the hut through the walls and the crackling of frost in the logs of the huts. The hare went to the threshing floor and found comrades there. He played with them on the cleared drain, ate oats from the open pantry, climbed up the snow-covered roof onto the barn and walked through the fence back to his ravine. The dawn was shining in the east, there were fewer stars, and the frosty steam rose above the ground even thicker. In a nearby village, women woke up and went to fetch water; the men were carrying food from the barn, the children were screaming and crying. More convoys were walking along the road, and the men were talking louder.
The hare jumped across the road, went up to his old hole, chose a higher place, dug up the snow, lay down backwards in the new hole, laid his ears on his back and fell asleep with his eyes open.
Still, it’s nice to read the fairy tale “Belyak” by M. M. Prishvin, even for adults, you immediately remember your childhood, and again, like a little one, you empathize with the heroes and rejoice with them. The desire to convey a deep moral assessment of the actions of the main character, which encourages one to rethink oneself, was crowned with success. All heroes were “honed” by the experience of the people, who for centuries created, strengthened and transformed them, giving great and deep meaning to children's education. And the thought comes, and behind it the desire, to plunge into this fabulous and incredible world, win the love of a modest and wise princess. The text, written in the last millennium, combines surprisingly easily and naturally with our modern times; its relevance has not diminished at all. The dialogues of the characters are often touching; they are full of kindness, kindness, directness, and with their help a different picture of reality emerges. An important role for children’s perception is played by visual images, of which this work abounds, quite successfully. The fairy tale “Belyak” by Prishvin M. M. can be read for free online countless times without losing love and desire for this creation.
Direct wet snow sat on twigs in the forest all night, broke off, fell, rustled.
The rustling drove the white hare out of the forest, and he probably realized that by morning black field will turn white and he, completely white, can lie quietly. And he lay down on a field not far from the forest, and not far from him, also like a hare, lay weathered over the summer and whitened sun rays horse skull.
By dawn the whole field was covered, and in the white immensity the white hare and a white skull.
We were a little late, and by the time we released the hound, the tracks had already begun to blur.
When Osman began to disassemble the fat, it was still difficult to distinguish the shape of the hare's paw from the hare's: he was walking along the hare. But before Osman had time to straighten the trail, everything completely melted away on the white path, and then there was neither sight nor smell left on the black one.
We gave up on hunting and began to return home at the edge of the forest.
“Look through binoculars,” I said to my friend, “that it’s white there on the black field and so bright.”
“Horse skull, head,” he answered.
I took the binoculars from him and also saw the skull.
“There’s something still white there,” said the comrade, “look further to the left.”
I looked there, and there, also like a skull, bright white, lay a hare, and through prismatic binoculars you could even see black eyes on the white. He was in a desperate situation: lying down meant being in full view of everyone, running meant leaving a print on the soft wet ground for the dog. We stopped his hesitation: we lifted him up, and at the same moment Osman, having seen him again, set off with a wild roar towards the sighted man.
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Hares found on the territory of the European part of our Union belong to two various types(Fig. 335). In the forest belt, the white hare is common (it is also found far in Siberia), and in more southern regions the brown hare lives - European look, which only recently crossed the Urals.
IN middle lane, for example, in the Moscow region, both species are found, but they live in areas of different nature: the hare is a real forest animal, while the hare lives in more open places - it lives in copses, bushes, fields, steppes and floodplains meadows and often gets into gardens and vegetable gardens.
The differences between both species - the hare and the hare - correspond to the characteristics of their distribution. The white hare, whose entire coat turns white during the winter (except for the black tips of the ears), extends its distribution further north, where snow cover lies more for a long time and where protective painting to match the color of snow is especially important vital meaning(remember other similar examples).
In the hare, which is distributed to the extreme south of our Union, where snow does not lie for long, the whitening of the coat is much less pronounced and top part the back always remains gray.
Compared to the hare, the hare has more short tail(Fig. 336) and shorter ears (if the ear is bent forward, it does not reach the end of the nose); this feature is also important in conditions northern winters. Further, the hare has wider paws, allowing him to run on loose forest snow (they can be likened to skis), while the hare has more “knocked” paws, getting stuck in loose snow, but well adapted to running on frozen pasture in open steppe spaces.
The composition of their usual food is somewhat different for both types of hares. The hare who lives closer to the villages often visits crops, climbs into hay sheds, eats hay from stacks, gnaws cabbage stalks in vegetable gardens and gnaws on the bark of fruit trees in gardens (to protect gardens from hares, they use a thick thorn fence, coat tree trunks with a special lime compound and tie them their prickly spruce paws).
In winter, the hare has to be content mainly with the branches and bark of young aspens, birches and willows. In summer, hares have a more varied diet: they eat various greens, mushrooms, and the hare also eats vegetables in the gardens.
The relatedness of both species is expressed in the fact that in the intermediate regions where they occur together, they occasionally form in natural conditions crossbreeds known as cuff hares (compare with black grouse from crossing wood grouse with black grouse).
Of course, the process of species separation of the hare and hare (as well as several other Asian and North American hares) took place in the past, and we can judge it only by the finished results. But even within these species, local forms, or subspecies, have already formed that are less different from each other and can easily interbreed.
Thus, experts distinguish between European and North Asia more than a dozen subspecies of hare and the same number of subspecies of hare.
Without describing all these forms, we will focus on two of them - one subspecies of hare, which obviously has a long origin, and one local form of hare, which arose quite recently.
Our first example is the hare found in Ireland. By all essential features, it must be recognized as a hare, however, unlike its continental relatives, this hare does not turn white for the winter (on this basis, some zoologists consider it not a subspecies, but special kind). The origin of this feature will be quite clear if we remember the mild climate of Ireland and the fact that Ireland has long been separated from the European mainland by wide sea straits. Here is an example of a local form.
The second example relates to our domestic fauna. As mentioned above, the hare avoids continuous forests, but settles inside the former forest belt when the former forests are cut down forest areas. Thus, over the last hundred years, the Rusak, in its settlement to the north, reached the upper reaches of the Kama, and in the east it went around Ural Mountains and penetrated southern part Western Siberian Plain.
Along with the settlement over a hundred years, the type of hare here has also changed. The hare's growth increased, the winter color of its fur turned white, and it became thicker, longer and fluffier.
The signs of the new eastern form of the hare are clearly adaptive in nature, corresponding to the special conditions in these areas environment: winters here are harsher and longer, and therefore hares with less thick fur endured frosts worse, weaker white hares were more often prey for predators; In addition to the density of fur, larger body sizes also contributed to survival.
Using the example of the Siberian form of the hare, formed over a very short term(before the eyes of the generation still alive!), the creative role is clearly visible natural selection, changing in a certain direction the population (set of individuals) of a given species, which finds itself in new physiographic conditions.
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