It's a bad habbit!

Val’s hare/rabbit visitor is devouring her veg and flowers

- Val Bourne

I KNOW that I’m your wildlife columnist, but there’s wildlife and wildlife! A four-footed friend has been visiting our garden and there’s a great debate among the neighbours as to whether it’s a young hare or a rabbit, so I have nicknamed the interloper the ‘habbit’ for now. It is rabbit-sized, I admit, but brown rather than grey. Given that we seem to have more hares in the fields than rabbits, perhaps it is a young hare. In spring this year, a pair of amorous hares could be seen sunning themselves in the field about 100 yards away from our low stone wall.

I knew something was wrong straight away, because the Best Beloved rushed upstairs and got dressed at speed – something he’s not normally known for. He’d pulled up the kitchen blind and the habbit was the first thing he saw on the path. I am now living with Mr McGregor, for he’s plotting how to stop Peter Habbit from eating our vegetables, although I think he’s not going as far as habbit pie.