Town Fox, Country Fox
May 20, 2010 by Bird
Filed under Blog, Fauna, Good Stuff, In The Garden, On My Travels, Summer, Wild London
We’ve always had urban foxes passing through and spending time in our garden, but there seems to be an excess of vulpine activity in these parts of late. Their fine sense of just how long it’s safe to stare at the stupid human before flowing silkily under or over the fence to safety displays a magnificent comic insolence. And now that their activities have taken on a destructive and faintly macabre air I feel like the slow witted butt of many a foxy joke. It’s almost like Wiley E Coyote is getting his own back in a small suburban English garden, and I am the one who’s playing the straight guy.
They’ve always dug the occasional hole in the grass, and they’ve always dumped bones in the flower beds. We have become blasé to their eerie nocturnal shrieking and if they eat an occasional bird… well, they are only making a living after all, and I bet they eat a good many rats, too. We rub along together pretty well. But last week I was astonished to find a whole sheep skull under the rosemary bush looking at me through empty eye sockets like a prop from a remake of Lord Of The Flies. And yesterday our neighbour in the flat downstairs (who is a strict vegan) found two large meaty bones abandoned on her back doorstep. Presumably someone is feeding them, or they are raiding illegally dumped food waste. I’d love to know where this stuff is coming from, but the foxes aren’t telling.
They’ve dug up our carrots and they’ve strewn Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes around like a bunch of truanting kids. They pulled up a tomato plant, just for fun. There is nothing they like better than gnawing at and playing football with our flowerpots, and they especially love my old workboots which I planted with geraniums; I never know where I’m going to find them from one morning to the next. They treat our garden the way rock stars treat hotel bedrooms. And I would love to see them doing it.
But oddly, the best sighting I’ve had all this year was of a wild country fox, hunting voles in a lush spring meadow. Country foxes are warier beasts all together, so I guessed all we’d get was a brief glimpse before it saw us and vanished into the long grass. But we were screened by a thick hedgerow and the wind was in our favour – the fox had no idea we were there at all.
It combed the meadow, listening intently for a sound that might betray a rodent or bird. It was a lesson to see how it went about it’s business, calm and patient yet utterly focussed, and it wasn’t long before we saw it pounce and eat some small unlucky thing.
It came closer and closer as it quartered the field, I still can’t quite believe it came so close that I could get these pictures with my humble point-and-shoot camera. I’ve hesitated to photograph wild animals before, out of respect and and a desire to not spoil a moment with the clattering of the shutter, but watching this creature go about it’s daily business did not feel intrusive. A lesson in methodical patience, it went about the chore of feeding itself with a relaxed unhurried alertness and I tried to do the same as I recorded it.
We must have watched it hunting in the sunshine and long grass for ten minutes or more and I would have gladly stayed longer, but we were only half way through our walk and needed to keep going if we were to make it home before dark.
As we continued to walk along the field edge the fox continued hunting, its beauty glowing bright in the sun. If I ever felt the slightest irritation with it’s city living cousins those feelings got melted utterly as I looked over my shoulder and watched it, still stalking the long grass, till it was out of sight.
To read more Nature Notes, why not visit Rambling Woods – in fact, why not write a Nature Notes post of your own?
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What a fantastic sequence of shots and great narrative too. The fox is such a beauty running in the field.
Thank you Carver! I still can’t believe my luck that I got to see it so well.
Wonderful and exciting photos! Thanks so much for sharing these.
Hello Nothingprofound, and thank you! I was thrilled skinny to see this animal so close, and without feeling like I was intruding on it.
Thanks for your sweet appreciation of even those critters that cause you complaints. Is there any animal more lovely than a red fox?
Jackie, they are fantastic animals. I have wondered lately what they would have to do to seriously try my patience – guess it’s lucky I don’t keep chickens
What a wonderful post. I had to laugh at the antics of your city foxes, though I imagine it can be exasperating to live with them. We’ve seen foxes here, but they are very shy and vanish as soon as they spot us.
You might check your camera manual to see if you can turn off the shutter sound effect. It helps when you’re sneaking up on things.
Hello Vicki! They are so much shyer in the countryside – partly I guess because they are less used to people and partly because they are hunted there. Do people kill foxes where you are? Here some people seem to think it’s a “sport” to do so. The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible, to paraphrase someone far wittier than me
One of the first things I do with any digital camera is turn off the shutter sound effect… the problem with my camera is a noisy mechanical “click” which I can’t do anything about. It’s a really good point though, no-one has to put up with that annoying sound if they don’t have to!
As far as I know people don’t go hunting for foxes here, but they will shoot them if they come around. Raccoons and groundhogs are often shot too. It’s sad, but predators and voracious plant eaters like these can really do a lot of damage for people trying to raise chickens or crops.
If I were depending on my garden for food I’d probably feel a lot differently about the foxes coming in and getting up to no good, that’s for sure. I used to work as an an agricultural labourer many years ago before I moved to the city, and one of my duties would often be to kill any “vermin” I saw coming on to the site. Needless to say that was the part of my job I was very slack at doing
And no-one ever noticed any difference to their yield despite my slackness – on smaller plots it might have been different though.
On a much smaller scale I now get furious at the snails who eat up all my marigolds, chilli plants and put holes in the tomatos, sometimes I feel like coming after them with a shotgun…
What a great series of photos and prose…Thank you for taking such care not to disturb the wildlife. I wish everyone had such ethics….Great post for Nature Notes…Michelle
Hello Michelle, and thank you! I get a kick out of all these wild creatures making a living however they can. And after all, if no one dropped their Kentucky fried chicken boxes on the ground, the foxes wouldn’t be bringing them to the garden. I’m happy for the foxes to find a place of safety here. I think many people never look at things from the wildlife’s perspective or can’t bring themselves to prioritise things that way, and that’s when individual animals and habitats suffer as you described so painfully on your blog.
And with wild animals you need to be able to think of the animal and how it lives first if you want to watch or encourage it. The rest just follows.
Hi Bird ~ Thanks for such a great post. It’s a pleasure to read and great to look at the photos….the KFC paragraph is a joy!
I popped over to your other site the other day and wanted to buy something for Liz, but I was a bit confused about the postage rates….but don’t worry, Liz is away for two weeks and I’ll visit the site again (I love steampunk) and either order something, or email you with my problems…eg: there is no ‘West Midlands’ in the drop down box Coventry is West Midlands. But it’s a beautiful site and I love your biog (and photo with cap and glasses)
xhenry
Hi Henry, and cheers for that! I thought you might enjoy this, I was thinking of “Foxy” as I wrote…
Thank you for the encouragement about Brilliant Aether, I am still a little nervous about it as word hasn’t quite got out yet. I’m so glad you like it! Thank you for letting me know about the missing postal district, do email me and let me know more – in fact, I’m going to email you!
I’m loving this post! What great photos and superb dialog! If the rest of your archived posts are as wonderful as this, it will take me quite a while to peruse them all!! ~karen
Hi Kaholly, and welcome! Wow, thank you, I hope you enjoy what you find here
I have to say though, it’s not every day I get to find such a great subject 
Oh, what excellent photos, Bird! Would you believe that just yesterday afternoon there was a small fox lying in our neighbor’s front yard? I tried taking pics of it through the screened windows, but they’re so awful they’re not worth posting. You mentioned the screeching. A few weeks ago when W was out of town, these horrible screams coming from the front of the house woke me and Lucy at 2 am. The screams were so loud that they echoed throughout the house. We crept downstairs and when I shined the flashlight on the front stoop, there was an adorable little fox. We’ve heard those screams for the past 17 years in our woods out back and had no idea what they were. I finally googled! Anyway, those are great photos and your patience and photographic skills really paid off. Excellent job!
Hi Holly! They make a real racket don’t they, I mean, it’s just blookdcurdling! In mating season it’s like someone murdering babies and the rest of the time it’s like nothing else on earth
Sounds like there might be a lot in your neighbourhood, probably a little shy ’cause they know there is a dog in your house. But still, you’ve seen two! (Or the same one twice?) I can picture the one in your neighbours yard. They like to sunbathe if they think no-one is looking
I can imagine hearing one so close must have been pretty scary, the screams are almost human, like someone being murdered on your doorstep. Bet you were glad to have Lucy for company that night! I wonder if yours are the same as our red foxes, it would be interesting to know.
A lovely post and a great series of photos on the fox!
Thank you Eileen, nice to see you again!
How cool, hon. I love foxes. We had a gray fox when we first moved here, but they’re wary creatures & disappeared deeper into the forest almost immediately. I also stumbled upon a red fox once on a nature hike. One of my favorite memories, that…
I just looked up the grey fox Lana, what a beautiful animal! I would have been so excited to see that. I’m thrilled whenever I see a fox, town or country. We see them a lot here in London but I still think it’s amazing that we have these clever little wild dogs living among us.
Wow, what great pictures! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wild red fox- it must have been a breathless, magical moment. As for the foxy in your garden, well I hope at least you get to spot your visitor(s) sometime in their revels. What a mess! It would be nice to get to watch!
Kit, we do see them sometimes and they are so insolent it makes me laugh out loud. Last night they were making a terrible racket so I went out to see what they were up to and in the dark I could here the cubs scattering frantically when they heard me coming. Our neighbours porch security light flashed on, and caught in the beam was a tiny cub, bright as a button. Like a stuffed toy but with teeth and worse manners. It stared at me for a beat then ran for the hole in the fence that I did not know was there
Wow, great photo’s. I love it when you get moment like this…just sharing their space for a little while. the last one I saw, saw me coming although he strolled off quite nonchalantly. I cannot imagine what it must be like having them trashing your garden, that would be a pain methinks. Perhaps, I would not be so happy then, a bit like when we had a mole! The garden looked like a bomb site.
It’s a pain, but I kind of think it’s worth it to see them! They haven’t destroyed anything for a while, just brought stinky bones in (the skull made a reappearance) so I guess as the cubs grow up it will get quieter again
Never had a mole in the garden, I sometimes wish I could be a mole whisperer though and convince them to dig elsewhere, as I know a few people who get wound up by them
In our little part of Africa one would think you get this all the time however you don’t all have moved into the open savanna including our Cape fox and jackals such a pity sign of the times