Fur Colour Change
Snowshoe hares change their coat colour from brown to white in the fall, and from white back to brown in the spring. You may spot them while they are undergoing this change of colour—in other words, while they are molting—and in this case, they will look to be part brown, part white. With my project, I aim to use iNaturalist reportings to get a better idea of when snowshoe hares' fur colour changes. This will be different in different parts of the province.
I analyzed a total of 102 photos that were submitted to me. I'd like to give a huge thanks to everyone who has submitted snowshoe hare photos to me!
The following graph shows the latitudes and dates of each snowshoe hare sighting, along with the colour of the hare in the associated photo. Observations with "unknown" colour either did not show the hare in the photo - it showed tracks or droppings instead - or did not show the hare clearly enough for me to make out the colour (i.e. trail camera photos at night).
The next graph shows the coordinates of each observation, along with whether the snowshoe hare's fur colour was matched or mismatched with its background. A colour match means the snowshoe hare was white against a full snow background, moulting against a partly snowy background, or brown against a background with no snow. I considered other combinations to be mismatches. An unknown colour match means that the colour of the hare was unclear from the photo, or I could not tell what the ground cover was. Unknown ground cover occurred in a couple of instances when hares were photographed in man-made structures.
