The magpie is to the fox what the raven is to the wolf: ever-present thief, playmate, annoyance, and herald. They are intelligent. They are adaptable. They must have realised from the first instant that foxes set foot in the North Downs that a land-bound creature worth dogging had entered their world, and now they pester them, daily, with clinging curiosity; foxes pull magpies in their wake like gulls after a tractor

But only rarely do I witness an interaction quite as remarkable as this


__

Spring brings more changes to nature, of course, than just flowers and baby animals. Foxes slim down en masse as their winter fur falls out and their sleek summer coat takes its place. It seems to make them rather itchy. Well, that, and perhaps an invertebrate "passenger" or two



I saw three foxes on my walk this afternoon: the one above having a scratch, a second who disappeared very quickly, and this one, a little vixen wandering about with the horses.



She was the picture of spring health



She wasn't obviously hunting, but she seemed to eat something after sniffing at this tussock clump.



A magpie took an interest in her soon after, but she kept heading closer to the lane where I was standing on just the other side of the fence. I hesitated, not wanting to startle her, but she pre-empted my flight by flattening herself down in the grass. She didn't seem overly concerned, however.



The magpie certainly didn't worry itself about me - clearly it had more important things to think about!



Notwithstanding the fact that magpies have wings, which foxes are not blessed with, it seemed to be putting itself at considerable risk Though, thinking back to how the SV and the Scraggly Vixen were attacked quite viciously by magpies in the garden last year, my first assumption was that this magpie was actually on the warpath. But the vixen didn't appear to think so at all.



It kept taking nips at her back. Removing something - possibly loose fur for nestbuilding, although magpies are more famous for putting shiny stolen objects in their nests. I think that this one was actually removing fleas or ticks from the fox.



An unlikely partnership! It is commonplace to see oxpeckers and other small birds tending to antelope and other large animals in this way, but the size difference between a fox and a magpie is much less marked, and being that foxes are predators that are quite capable of killing a large bird, there must be some level of understanding between the two.



But I wonder how long their truce will last!