Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
The message
from Janet Baraclough contains these
words:

Hares are all but extinct (or totally, maybe) on the Isle of
Lewis
and Harris because of buzzards.

What makes you think it's due to buzzards?

Observation - the Leodhasaich are out to their flocks a great deal,
and they see - or should I say, 'used to see' the swoop (rather
than
stoop)
and the stagger-off with a load of hare.

Of course, the golden eagles don't help - well, they don't help the
hares...

And the sheep, of course, though they don't
stoop quite so fas or from such a height as raptors.

Arran has loads of hares despite having many sheep buzzards,
and
eagles. Our last place also had buzzards, sheep and hares. I've
never
seen a buzzard even attempt to catch anything as big as a hare,
but
on the mainland I've frequently seen poachers hunting them with
dogs.

Coursing isn't exactly a Lewis pastime, and in the years I was
there I
never saw a greyhound, a whippet or a lurcher. And I only ever saw
one
hare despite being outside pretty nearly all the daylight hours.

The bodaich said that when *THEY* were boys the island was alive
with
hares.

Nice to see what my long residence in Wales has forced me to regard
as the second language of Heaven: just stick, as above, to words I
know!

--
Mike.