Critters in your garden

For the first time since moving here 7 years ago we had a hare in the garden this morning. It seemed, well, uninterested in the flowers or vegetables, and we grow a lot of 'rabbit favorites' like carrots, leafy greens, beets... It seemed to make a careful survey of the entire yard, wasn't troubled by our looking on from within the house, hopped across the various footpaths and patios, and now has left.

I've seen hares around, but usually they're running away (except at night, when they're stunned by headlamps and can't decide whether to get off the road.) I know there's a rabbit fever running around, but from what I've googled, this doesn't seem like it. It's just calmly surveying.

So, is this hare's visit a harbinger of more to come? Is it heading back to the warren to tell them about all the yummy vegetables it just found? And if in fact it does return, should I trap it?

I hope to borrow a neighbor's dog for a visit soon and have it crap in the yard a few times, so as to deter visits. But still, this was odd, the hare seemingly didn't have a care in the world.

Ummm... I don't want it eating my hard fought vegetable crop. Could it be ill? It was unafraid of us and, for now, ignored the vegetables.

Alright it'll be on probation. I had a foolproof way to keep rabbits out of the veg in the US will see if it works on Irish hares. Just ringed the beds with rolled up bird netting on the ground. The rabbits would not cross it

Enough mink around where wandering ducks and chickens aren't a problem for long

We've had hares, rabbits, all sorts of birds, even pheasants visit our garden. We watched a rabbit for about 20 min on Sunday grazing away on the grass..

Young hares, leverets can be a bit casual sometimes. We had one in our garden few years ago that came very close when I was weeding etc. Didn't try to tame it or anything like that, it didn't keep coming back so may have got a bit of sense or was an easy prey for something else. Beautiful animal.

You can borrow my dog to place few stinky piles to deter visitors, but your veggies won't be safe, she loves to dig out some carrots and radish. Especially radish, all eaten she's an addict.

Your cat probably needn't be nervous. We've always had foxes passing through but last year a cat with kittens moved in (since re-homed). I watched one little kitten refuse to let a fox near a titbit we'd thrown out, it was amazing. Any time the fox made a move towards the food the little kitten would arch its back and just look at the fox, and the fox would not advance. It tried to circle it's way to the food a couple of times but eventually gave up. At no time was the kitten in any way nervous, it just knew it could do this.

We have pine martens and hares also. It surprises me that the hares don't run from wandering pine martens. It just stood to attention, watching, watching... until the marten was out of whatever range and just resumed grazing when it was sure it was gone. I thought I'd be watching a horror story. I enjoy watching all these interactions but really dislike the pine martens.

I've never seen a pine marten really running, they have a funny gait that I do enjoy watching but it's the only thing I like about them. Yeah, we figured the hare must know it can outrun it. I just hope the martens aren't clever enough to arrange an ambush on the escape route. I'm fond of the hares.