...I don't think that I'd ask for much more than a quiet morning like this in the open meadows, when the frost is sprinkled with fresh snow, and sun makes the whole whitened world sparkle. Snow (even in minor quantities) has exactly the same effect on foxes that it has on young dogs and I was impatient to be out with my camera this morning.



Following wildlife is always a riddle Fortunately I knew that we had had two snowfalls since last night - the first fell before 8am, and the second at around 9:30am. I established that 1) a fox had headed into the field after the first snow had settled, and 2) a fox exited down the same track after the second snowfall, perhaps shortly before I arrived. But I don't think that it was the same fox!

The fresh fox tracks



For when I slipped past the stile, a large fox shot out of the bushes about 100 yards to my left like a streak of ginger flame, careering headfirst into a thicket, turning like a lioness pursing a weaving gazelle, and doubling back on itself without a sound. Startled, I waited at a distance, presuming that the fox in question was in the middle of a hunt.

Not so! It soon reappeared looking distinctly excited. It galloped toward the thicket again, tossing a large object - a bone? a stolen shoe? I couldn't quite tell - and then staring further into the thicket, ears pricked tall. Another fox, just visible to me, if not really to my camera, was in the field!



And another, who did put himself decidedly in view!


__

In another meadow, far from the road, two more foxes were also in playful mood.



I've been looking at 100% crops of these two foxes and I'm moderately sure that this is the same pair whom I photographed in another field yesterday ("foxes 5 & 6" in my previous post). At least, I'm as certain as I can be about the vixen - she has rather unusual markings - but I'll have to get a better view of the male next time I see them. Teasing apart the mystery of the social organisation of the whole loose group will take some doing, but if these two are the main breeding pair, then I have made some unexpected progress already. I've tagged them BL1-M and BL2-F for "easy" recording, but for all other intents and purposes they are the Ginger Dogfox, here on the right...



...and the Striped Vixen. (I'm not expecting to win any awards for name originality here )



But I wasn't their only observer



I was fascinated by this young male fox. My eyesight is far better than that of any fox - not only in terms of colour, but also of perception of detail - but he was clearly able to see the pair at a distance of at least 500 feet. Just the movement, maybe?

He was also listening for rodents in the grass, but I didn't see him pounce.



A sprinkling of snow and a little bit of sunshine makes for a good winter walk