Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Michel Roggo (Switzerland)

Ghost of a March hare

'Editing my photographs, I came across this shot I'd taken in Seeland, Switzerland, which I almost deleted. It broke all the rules - it was out of focus, with the animal running out of the picture. But the more I looked at it, the more it represented to me the nature of hares - bolting briefly into view and then disappearing like ghosts.' Hares usually hide from predators. But if discovered, they will try to outrun them, their long hind legs able to propel them up to 70 kilometres per hour. A female only mates for a few hours every six weeks, so when it's ready the males have a task to fight each other off. Usually they mate at night, but by March the nights are getting shorter and the hares more visible, hence the expression 'mad as a March hare'.

Canon EOS 40D + Canon EF500mm f4 IS USM lens with Canon EF 1.4 II extender; 1/160 sec at f16; ISO 200.