Closer to Home
Friday, 18. July 2008, 11:01:34
It seems quite a while since I've written a post on the wild foxes who visit the garden. In truth they haven't been particularly active this week, but I did catch a soaking wet Old Dogfox yesterday evening 
The most intriguing action is taking place well after dusk, which makes life remarkably difficult for me as a photographer - getting shots of fast-moving foxes at 30+ ft at high zoom without flash is never going to be fun after the sun has set
However...
The Chipped Vixen is still a regular visitor, and curiously she is often not alone. Her frequent companion is a tall, long-eared male fox who has a wide-eyed expression similar to her own. He has been on my blog before - he was the one fighting with the Old Dogfox in the noisy cub video - but to date I've never got a still photo of him. I nearly did yesterday. He was sitting quite cooperatively on the mound, but I took too long to get the camera set up
I haven't given him a name as most of these young males don't tend to stay in the territory very long. Perhaps I'll reconsider though, if I can think of something fitting for him.
In the meantime, here's the hard-won photo of the Chipped Vixen. I get pictures of her so rarely that I think almost any quality is worth uploading on here
__
And on a totally different topic, the pond gave me a nice surprise yesterday Something (or to be exact, a pair of somethings) were apparently clinging to an iris stem! 
This is the empty shell of a dragonfly nymph that has climbed up out of the water and hatched into an adult. I had no idea that there were nymphs in the pond at all (though its dark depths remain something of a mystery
) and where the newly-hatched adults have gone, I do not know. I would love to see them back here!
The most intriguing action is taking place well after dusk, which makes life remarkably difficult for me as a photographer - getting shots of fast-moving foxes at 30+ ft at high zoom without flash is never going to be fun after the sun has set
However...The Chipped Vixen is still a regular visitor, and curiously she is often not alone. Her frequent companion is a tall, long-eared male fox who has a wide-eyed expression similar to her own. He has been on my blog before - he was the one fighting with the Old Dogfox in the noisy cub video - but to date I've never got a still photo of him. I nearly did yesterday. He was sitting quite cooperatively on the mound, but I took too long to get the camera set up
I haven't given him a name as most of these young males don't tend to stay in the territory very long. Perhaps I'll reconsider though, if I can think of something fitting for him.
In the meantime, here's the hard-won photo of the Chipped Vixen. I get pictures of her so rarely that I think almost any quality is worth uploading on here
__
And on a totally different topic, the pond gave me a nice surprise yesterday
Something (or to be exact, a pair of somethings) were apparently clinging to an iris stem! This is the empty shell of a dragonfly nymph that has climbed up out of the water and hatched into an adult. I had no idea that there were nymphs in the pond at all (though its dark depths remain something of a mystery
) and where the newly-hatched adults have gone, I do not know. I would love to see them back here!
so I returned, bemused, to the footpath, only to find him at the top of the ridge, not fifteen feet away, frozen like a cat who has just spied a giant dog. Sure enough, down the footpath suddenly poured a dozen or more school kids and their teachers. It was quite amazing that they all filed past unaware that they were being nervously appraised by a silent but watchful little canid on the other side of the flimsy fence.
Here's a corvid quartet.
but pretty much everything else in the way of birdlife seemed elusive. But never say never... 
