Face to face with Mr Hare

It was a lovely morning, I had time in hand so I decided to walk to W-wa Dawidy station (a half-hour journey rather than the 15 minutes to W-wa Jeziorki). My route takes me to the end of ul. Trombity, then along ul. Kórnicka, across the railway tracks and then parallel to them all the way to ul. Baletowa and the station. And while on the track that runs alongside the tracks, I espied this character bounding up towards me. Here, hare, here. Unusual behaviour for a hare. Note the gait; quite unlike that of a rabbit - all four legs off the ground. Much larger, too. The size of of a large terrier.

Suddenly, the hare pauses, looks at me. I'm still, fixing him with my 300mm lens. Note his eyes. Unlike the irises of cats or goats - round, like those of humans. He stands there for a while...

...then decides to bravely run away through the cabbage patch. Why is it, I thought, that humans domesticated cats, dogs - rabbits even - but not hares? These guys would make interesting pets...

If Jeziorki's four-legged mammalian wildlife is represented by the hare, in Ealing it is the fox. The fox is now a very common sight in West London, rummaging in dustbins, quite unfazed by human presence. Here's one I saw earlier this month on Haven Green by Ealing Broadway, late in the evening, surrounded by humans waiting for buses home.

This time two years ago:
Central Warsaw vistas

This time three years ago:
Future of urban motoring?

This time six years ago:
On foot to Limanowa

This time seven years ago:
Crumbling neo-classicism in Grabów

This time eight years ago:
Bike ride into deepest Mazovia