Whispering hares.

Scattered like tiny WWII pillboxes, the sentinels of the field kept a watchful eye on the skies, themselves and us. We counted ten harey lumps hunckered down into the ground hardly moving, only occasionally taking the odd nibble of grass. Activity was considerably less compared to last weeks debauchery. It was perishingly cold again, maybe too cold for excessive running around and definately not the weather for any unnecessariness!

After a most welcome mug of coffee and a chunk of almond chocolate, we settled down to some sketching. Then from the right another hare appeared and ran straight to the nearest resting one. It stood facing the other, if not in a threatening manner, undoubtedly within the others personal space. Eventually the resting hare rose, slowly strecthed it's legs and with the interloper in close attendance made their way towards another of the seated hares. It was impossible to tell if they were male and female, but the newcomer ran alongside the other behaving as if it was a suitor. They soon reached the third hare, again indulging in a face-off with each other and again the sitting hare stood up. This time a spot of half-hearted boxing took place making it impossible to keep up with who was who. The outcome of this was that two hares wandered off and the other ran to another seated hare, where the same behaviour was repeated and repeated again with a fifth hare, each encounter ending in the same manner.

It was difficult to work out what all this was about, however, we had noted a number of other hares resting in adjacent fields to the main 'boxing' arena. Could these be immature males, watching and learning from the sidelines? The interloper certainly had the look of a young buck playing-the-field, rushing into a settled scene and stirring things up. Indeed the episode finished with a pair of hares loping off into the distance, over the hill and out of sight. Maybe he got lucky.

So, forget the Leveson inquiry, if it's intrigue, sex and scandal you are after, follow the Leveret investigations.