A big hare caused a scare for a Whangarei Heads man who initially thought the metre-tall fluffy beast in his back garden could be a wandering wallaby.
Heads resident Rick Anderson had a shock when he saw what he thought was wallaby in his garden at Basil Rd, just short of Ocean Beach, yesterday morning.
The property is not far from the Bream Head Conservation reserve and he called the Department of Conservation to report the strange sight.
"At first I thought it looked way too big to be a rabbit or hare and as I went towards it it stood up on its hind legs. It was about a metre tall and massive and it just took off," Mr Anderson said. He didn't get a chance to photograph it but hadn't thought a hare would be that tall.
But a call from DoC experts, who took a detailed description from him, and Advocate inquiries of wallaby experts confirmed that what Mr Robertson saw was almost certainly a large hare.