Izzy’s Bee and Me: Poetry and Pictures from the Peak

An exhibition of illustrated poetry inspired by the landscape and natural history of the Peak District, as experienced by local poet, Simon Unwin.

Simon has lived in the Peak since 1985, and has been a factory worker, national park ranger, mountain rescue dog handler, climber, hill-walker and amateur naturalist. He has lived in Ashford-in-the-Water for the past twenty-three years.

Tourist Information Centre, Thursday 6-Sunday 16 August during normal opening hours, Free

Brown Hares in the Limestone hills
An Exhibition of Photographs
I have seen hares on many occasions in the twenty years that I’ve lived in the Peak District, but in the last year I have become intensely involved with studying and photographing them. In selecting these few photographs out of the many hundreds in my collection I have tried to provide a glimpse into the lives of these charismatic and extremely elusive animals.
Hares are mainly in evidence in the spring and early summer around dawn and dusk which is when these photographs were taken. While many of these pictures are peaceful it is thrilling to watch hares race at up to 45 miles an hour in flight or in pursuit of a mate. Great to watch but hard to capture!
Through the harshest winter of the last twenty years I searched for traces of hares and followed their tracks in the snow. I found areas of frozen fields they had scraped at in order to survive. When the snow was at its deepest in February I found a hare’s ‘igloo’ under a wall on the very top of the hill opposite our house. I find this evidence of their resourcefulness in surviving entirely in the open very moving and it is easy to see how only 50% of the summer population survive the winter.
I have been up many times at dawn to watch hares all within a mile of my home in Youlgreave Derbyshire. I have encountered large groups of hares resting and feeding together or madly chasing an ovulating female. I’ve watched them boxing, mating, grooming, dozing and feeding sometimes away in the distance, sometimes up very close. The photographs that I have taken encapsulate some very special moments watching the wildest of creatures unseen and becoming familiar with their behaviour.
I am currently working on a book about hares in association with Peak District National Park Authority, Natural England and the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. I am hoping to draw attention to the fragility of the brown hare population which has declined by 75% over the last fifty years. This is to do with loss of habitat, the decimation of our wildflower meadows and intensive farming methods.
The EU requires member states under the Bio–diversity Action Plan to help key species including hares. But government plans to double Brown hares in Britain by 2010 seem to be at odds with laws that offer them no protection from being shot apart from Sundays and on Christmas day!

Christine Gregory

the Medway Centre, Monday 3 August-Thursday 3 September, Free