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!