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.

We had a surprise visit this afternoon. We'd popped outside to tidy up the garden who should I see over the fence at the back than our fox. I called out to him, and sure enough he was up for a visit and hopped over the gap in the corner of the garden to see what was on offer.

What was on offer was very little, but we did find a few sultanas and Markies to keep him happy. We spent about 15 minutes out there with him, and then watched from indoors for another 10 or so before he wandered off.

As well as managing a few photos I took some video clips which I've added to my fox video

page. It's called 'A November Afternoon'. Here's a direct link. What you can see is the fox wandering around the garden, being tempted by a Markie and then burying it behind the pergola, and finally relaxing in the centre of the lawn. No doubt he'll be back later to retrieve the Markie. If you watch closely you'll see how careful he is to keep to the paths. He even uses the stepping stones set out in the border.

This is the best of the photos from today.

Here is a good general shot of the garden and typical of what we frequently see when we look from the windows. Usually though it's too dark for any distance shots, so the afternoon visit was a bonus.

This final shot is just before we went inside. It shows more or less the whole garden.

We heard the distinctive noise of the foxes outside at around midnight tonight. In a vain attempt to get a decent photo of the vixen I snapped a shot through the window without first checking what was out there (catch them unawares). It was only with the flash of the camera that I saw that it was the dog fox. He hangs around anyway, so I went outside. For some reason, instead of waiting for me in the hope of an egg, he disappeared to the back of the garden.

I followed him to the rear and tempted him forward with some markies, but he was clearly distracted. He quickly deserted the treat to go the bushy area behind the trees. It was only then that I realized that another fox had been lurking. I watched as the dog fox disappeared behind the cover of the shrubs and was then treated to an aural array of scuffling and shrieking and squealing. This lasted maybe a minute, before one shot off to the right, and one to the left. It was too dark to see who went which way. I've no idea if they were fighting, hunting something down, or simply playing.



This first photo is the one taken through the window (that's a cobweb you can see). The dog fox is centre-right in the middleground. Over to the left another pair of eyes peers through the darkness.


This is the shot of the dog fox just after he was through eating the crumbs I gave him. You can again see a brightly lit pair of eyes watching from the rear right. It was a moment or so after this that the squabble (if that's what it was) broke out.