All Spaced Out

Wednesday, 16. July 2008, 12:29:58

For every fox observation that finds a place on my blog, I have dozens of "ships passing in the night" type encounters. Footprints in the mud here, a brush vanishing into a hedgerow there; it's usually just a moment, a fleeting glimpse, but nonetheless another clue to aid me in fitting together the fantastically complex jigsaw which is fox territorial arrangement.

I don't know for sure how many foxes actually live in my local area - the village and its surrounding farms and woodlands and meadows. I'd estimate that perhaps there are a few dozen, but not all are reproducing adults. Working out the members of different groups is always going to a headache. We have vagrants. We have immigrants. We have some foxes who seem to live by no rules at all. Sadly, we also have many foxes who are hit by cars and die in the bushes long before natural mortality would have claimed them.

The upshot is that I have a large amount of fairly rough data that are not easy to analyse. With a view to that, I've been stitching google maps together lately...

...so that I can at least consider the bigger picture when I, say, see a fox in a meadow. This one was in the meadow highlighted on the map.

Unlike the foxes who visit my garden, these foxes aren't always easy to distinguish as individuals with confidence, unless they have obvious scars or markings. Which is another reason for me to take as many pictures as possible even when the light is horrible.

I hoped this fox would arise from his slumbers and come a bit closer to my vantage point on the footpath. I waited a little while but to no avail, so wandered back out into the lane around the corner, hoping for a different angle on him. However, from there he wasn't visible at all

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.

Who is really watching whom? I have to ask: for every encounter about foxes that I know about, how many times have I been unaware that they are observing me?

Avian SurprisesCloser to Home

Comments

I get that feeling too when I walk in the park. I wonder how many pairs of eyes there are watching me as I look for wildlife. Probably more foxes than I realize. I've only seen one, but he came to check me out, not the other way about, so they must be more interested in people than the other animals that startle and run when they see a person. I expect most of them are just as curious about us as we are about them.

By cakkleberrylane, # 16. July 2008, 16:23:37

But, Adele, you do some very good detective work. I bet there aren't many you miss altogether.

By MaGoose, # 16. July 2008, 16:23:43

By Dacotah, # 16. July 2008, 16:29:21

@Lois - yes, and I wonder if that bobcat you saw had seen you on a previous visit there! Foxes can be reasonably good at flattening themselves in the grass if they really have to, but when it comes to the elusiveness crown cats have no equal

I rarely get a sense that foxes don't want to be watched. However, it is difficult to find them over the meadows at this time of year, as the grass is so high except when horses are kept.

By SittingFox, # 16. July 2008, 17:11:44

@Marie - well, they often spring surprises, like when the meadow vixen (now dubbed the Scraggly Vixen) suddenly moved to the garden. Foxes are so fascinating to study because they really are so unpredictable. I know I don't see the whole picture, and that makes the mystery of their territorial setup even more intriguing!

By SittingFox, # 16. July 2008, 17:14:22

@Carol -

By SittingFox, # 16. July 2008, 17:14:33

Great post! I think you are quite right, they are more likely to be watching you than you them! The foxes which I supply with tid-bits behind my garden wall are often in the bushes waiting for their dinner - no sooner have you returned to the house, they are at the food. However, I have never actually seen them in the scrub but they are there...somewhere!

By Vulpes vulpes, # 16. July 2008, 19:23:16

Excellent to see the area like that, and I'm sure they are watching more often than we realize. Several years ago we used to walk our dog around here. The foxes were often out on the street at night and would simply nip behind some railings until we'd gone past. Then they'd be back in the street, garden hopping. If we stopped, they would just watch us from safe distance.

By Words, # 16. July 2008, 19:45:10

You seem to live in the fox capital of the world! I only see a fox once every couple of years here (although admittedly I don't actually go out looking for them). I see quite a lot of squirrels though, which are kind of like foxes (well they have tails anyway) though I've discovered some people view them as vermin, the same as rats! I suppose a lot of people consider foxes to be vermin too though...

By infinity-1, # 16. July 2008, 19:47:31

It's a little disconcerting to think that maybe the bobcat has been watching me! It's pretty dense forest over there, anything could be hiding. I would guess though that unless I get between the animal and it's escape route or between a mother and her young, they probably wouldn't bother me. What do you think?

By cakkleberrylane, # 16. July 2008, 19:51:43

By Dacotah, # 16. July 2008, 21:05:20

Hmmm, who is watching who?

Wouldn't it be funny if humans were actually being observed all the time by record-keeping wildlife

Can you imagine.
7:55 Human leaves main nest (tracking begins)
8:00 Human enters mechanical conveyance
8:20 Human enters larger mechanical conveyance on tracks
9:20 Human enters tall nest (surveyance through see-through panel begins)
9:30 Human plays with papers and talks to self while holding a thing to his ear
9:50 Human looks at machine and moves fingers
10:00 Human gets liquid and relieves self

By momable, # 17. July 2008, 03:24:38

You never know!!!

By cakkleberrylane, # 17. July 2008, 11:54:22

@Vulpes - the Old Dogfox does that sometimes; I go out into the garden for something and there he is, out of nowhere! I often think that a thermal imaging detector would be handy to locate wildlife lurking in bushes

By SittingFox, # 17. July 2008, 18:51:24

@Words - I've been trying to find a happy medium...trying not having the map so vast that it's unmanagable and yet also keeping it detailed enough to be actually useful. I settled on 200m / inch in the end. This is just one small corner of my fox-watching neighbourhood, of course, although many of the meadow fox pictures I've put on my blog come from the big field in the top right.

Nice story. Foxes are excellent at using railings and walls for their purposes!

By SittingFox, # 17. July 2008, 18:55:19

@Infinity - I'm sure my local foxes would like to think that this is the fox capital!

Certainly I've got few complaints about the mammal watching around here in general. I just wish the weasels would cooperate with my camera for once

By SittingFox, # 17. July 2008, 19:07:08

@Lois - I wouldn't be worried by a bobcat, well, unless it was acting very oddly (...the usual

) or if I had to handle it for some reason. Our European lynx are far larger than bobcats and even they don't really pose a risk. I guess the park rangers can advise on your local bigger wildlife

By SittingFox, # 17. July 2008, 19:47:23

@Elly -

Thanks for the chuckle, much appreciated! The possibilies of a blog run by foxes on the humans they observe...that would make hilarious reading

Human looks at machine and moves fingers

...the miracle of hot chocolate...how can we explain to foxes that that is as important to us as peanut butter is to them?

By SittingFox, # 17. July 2008, 19:49:28

Interesting post. Makes me think if I'm seeing everything there is when I step outside. I sometimes hear rustling in the bushes which I often think is just a squirrel or rabbit, and I rarely look. I don't think it's going to be anything wolf sized but it might be something worthwhile.

By CedarFox, # 17. July 2008, 23:09:25

If something rattles the bushes and I am out in nature -- I get away from it! If they are hiding in there, I ain't going to spook 'em.

You are braver than I, Adele.

By momable, # 17. July 2008, 23:29:08

@Eric - a wolf, or a coyote, would be very cool

I've had several "unseen" encounters with black bears where I know they're there, but they're just not showing themselves. Once I was out walking in the near zero-visibility BC coastal forest when I heard some heavy snoring coming from a vegetation covered pit, far too deep and difficult for a person to get into! Must have been a bear - there was nothing else local big enough