At Tidgrove, some of the most revealing signs of change are small ones. A patch of closely cropped grass. Fresh soil beside a rabbit burrow. Shorter vegetation on an ant hill. A hare feeding on hawthorn berries at the edge of a field.
Together, these observations invite us to look more closely at the relationships shaping the estate’s recovering landscape.
Tidgrove has a long history as a rabbit warren. Today, after three decades of grassland recovery on former arable land, rabbits remain part of its story, alongside a healthy hare population. Their presence raises an important question: how do these animals contribute to regeneration, and when might their activity hold it back?
During and after this year’s drought, we saw more healthy looking rabbits on the estate. We also witnessed hares eating hawthorn berries and sloes, and have noticed shorter grasses on ant hills. These are observations rather than conclusions, but each offers a starting point for understanding how the landscape works.
The importance of grazing on chalk grassland has long been recognised. In 1965, ecologist T. C. E. Wells described how removing grazing could allow vigorous grasses to crowd out smaller plants, drawing on earlier research in Hampshire. As taller vegetation develops, competition for light can change which species survive.
Rabbits can help maintain patches of short turf, giving low growing wildflowers room among taller grasses. Their effects also extend beneath the surface. Burrowing brings soil, and where they reach it, chalk fragments to the surface, while shallow scrapes break up the turf.
These small disturbances create openings where some seeds can germinate and insects can find warm, exposed ground. In an otherwise continuous covering of vegetation, scattered patches of bare soil add variety. Extensive digging, however, can damage vegetation and archaeological features, an important consideration in a landscape with Tidgrove’s history.
Ant hills create another kind of variation. By moving soil and building their mounds, ants change the conditions in which plants grow. Vegetation on a mound can differ from that in the surrounding grassland, creating a small but distinctive habitat.
The shorter grasses we have noticed on Tidgrove’s ant hills are particularly interesting in this respect. Research on a Dutch salt marsh found that brown hares selectively grazed ant mounds when cattle were absent. Their grazing favoured red fescue, a grass able to tolerate repeated feeding, over a taller, less tolerant species.
Could a similar interaction contribute to the shorter vegetation on our ant hills? It is a possibility worth exploring. The Dutch findings do not establish what happens on Tidgrove’s chalk soils, and short grass alone cannot tell us which animals have grazed it. The ants themselves also influence the vegetation. Watching these mounds more closely could help us understand the contribution of each.
Rabbits and hares may have a further, less visible role in grassland recovery: carrying seeds.
Experiments have shown that some plant seeds survive digestion and can germinate from rabbit and hare droppings under controlled conditions. In a study of brown hares, successful species included yarrow, red clover and white clover. Separate research has demonstrated seed dispersal by rabbits too.
This offers a possible connection between the animals’ movements and the spread of plants. A seed eaten in one patch may be deposited elsewhere, potentially reaching ground it would otherwise struggle to colonise.
There are several steps between carrying a seed and establishing a new plant, however. Many seeds do not survive digestion. Those that do must arrive in suitable conditions, germinate and survive grazing, competition and dry weather. The research demonstrates a mechanism that could contribute to recovery at Tidgrove, but its importance here remains to be measured.
Our observations of hares eating haws and sloes during the drought raise a related question about how animals respond when their usual food changes.
Research in a Mediterranean landscape found that brown hares broadened their diet towards fruit and seeds during dry conditions, when leafy forage became less suitable. Fruit can provide energy and moisture. At Tidgrove, however, we cannot yet distinguish whether the hares were responding to thirst, changes in their usual forage or simply the availability of ripe fruit.
Nor does eating fruit necessarily mean dispersing its seeds successfully. The flesh may be eaten while stones are left behind, or seeds may be damaged during feeding. The behaviour is something we have witnessed; the fate of the seeds is another question to investigate.
These animals also belong to a wider food web. Rabbits and hares provide prey for predators, while their remains sustain scavengers and decomposers. Rabbit droppings provide food for some beetles and help return nutrients to the soil. Their influence therefore reaches beyond the plants they eat.
None of this means that more grazing is always better. Persistent feeding can remove flowers before they set seed, consume emerging seedlings and hinder young trees and shrubs. A closely cropped patch may suit one species while offering little to another that depends on taller cover or plentiful flowers.
Tidgrove’s management plan, written in 2015, recognised rabbit grazing as one of the influences shaping its varied grassland. It also warned that rabbit pressure could become a problem during drought. Seeing more healthy looking rabbits therefore makes it especially interesting to follow how the vegetation responds as moisture returns.
Comparing grazed patches with small protected areas could help reveal that balance. Following flowering, seedling establishment and exposed soil through the seasons, alongside observations of feeding on ant hills, would allow us to move from plausible explanations towards evidence from the estate itself.
From the ants working beneath the turf to the rabbits and hares feeding above it, grassland recovery involves many small interactions. Understanding them will help us care for a varied landscape with room for wildflowers, insects, birds and mammals.
Tidgrove’s historic connection with rabbits continues, but their role today is part of a much wider story of observation, recovery and learning.
Research and further reading
Wells, 1965: Grazing and mowing experiments on chalk grassland, printed page 84
Veen and colleagues: Interactions between grazing animals, ant mounds and vegetation
Stiegler and colleagues, 2021: Seed dispersal through brown hares
Cosyns and colleagues, 2005: Germination after passage through rabbit and ungulate digestive systems
Sokos and colleagues, 2015: Brown hare diet during dry and wet conditions
Tidgrove Warren Farm Management Plan 2014–2024, prepared March 2015