Everything is Permuted

It's about a week since I've posted any news of the foxes, so this is something of a catch-up post.
Last Saturday, the dog fox came by

And again on Sunday

Monday saw the 'not so shy' vixen put in an appearance

Tuesday was interesting. No photos, but late in the evening we saw a fox down near the back door. It may have been the 'nicked-ear' vixen, but I was concerned to see that her brush was in a fairly tatty state and there seemed to be some dark areas on her rear left flank. My worry is that this may indicate mange. I couldn't be certain. She was only there for a moment and I was looking out through a window, but if it is mange her general reticence about being in the garden will make her difficult to treat. Of course it could be an early moult, or fleas, or a myriad of other reasons why she was looking untidy.

No sightings on Wednesday.

Thursday it was the dog fox again, sitting down for a scratch

This time he left via the hole in the fence

Technically, no sightings on Friday, though in the early hours of Saturday morning the 'not so shy' vixen was back.
Looking fine

And then on Saturday morning proper, I looked out of the window and, lo and behold, peeking out from behind the pond was the nicked-ear vixen.


She's not easiest fox to photograph and that's probably the best of the few photos I managed through the window. Which is fine, except that I really did want to get a better look at her to see how her flanks were. Which meant going outside and - inevitably - watching her retreat from the garden. Her brush did look mildly tatty, though not as bad as I'd feared from the brief glimpse on Tuesday. The coat on her right flank may also be thinning slightly. It looks darker than usual (the under pelt showing through). I'd really like to get a better view of her to see what's going on.


On an entirely different note, I'm struggling to identify this US Army aircraft that flew over the garden today.


Camera note: The photos were all taken with the EF 24-105 F4L IS USM lens with the exception of Monday's photo of the 'not so shy' vixen which was taken with the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens, and the 'nicked-ear' vixen and aircraft shots from today which were with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS.