Close encounter with a hare – a rare sight in the West Country

West Dartmoor To have chanced across this night-roamer, lolloping calmly across the muddy lane, was a rare privilege indeed.Hemmed in on either side by tall hedgerows, this narrow Dartmoor lane skirts the flank of higher ground and scores a deep furrow between fields so that after dark you feel you are tunnelling through the terrain, headlights tracing a leaden seam of asphalt. There is little traffic here to trouble nocturnal wildlife. Over the years I have come across badgers, heads striped li