Resting fox

A fox relaxing in the morning Sun in our garden.




Photos taken through a closed window.

Wow Mart....beautiful photos !

Thanks Malcolm. :)

Great photos Mart

A word of caution. Foxes are nocturnal animals and rarely seen by day. One of the early signs of Fox mange is wandering by day, not being scared of humans, listlessness, scratching and biting itself. It can be transmitted to dogs which is on concern

A few years back we had a regular fox visitor to the garden that would rest there and allowed me to walk up to within two yards of it and feed it. Your photos could so easily have been our fox. After a few weeks I noticed that it had small bald patches on its rear and had a strange walk. I spoke to a vet friend and she told it it showed classical signs of mange.

I found this informative web site and obtained their free mange treatment which worked but even when cured the the fox would still visit the garden where I left food out - early evening as the sun was setting. 

The great thing was it was no longer frightened of me - it would come into the garden and sit at the spot on the lawn where I left out the food. I could walk out and get to within 2 yards of him before he inched his way backwards to retain that distance. It was a nightly ritual. it was just me it was not frightened of - it remained scared of my wife or others.

On a few occasions he played a starring role in my party piece.

We would have friends around and would be sitting in the lounge having pre-dinner drinks. I would keep an eye out for the fox, who we named Fred. As soon as I saw Fred at the top of the garden I would announce his presence and they would look out of the window to see him. I would open the window and just as he reached his feeding spot I would shout "Fred-SIT" - and he would - only because he would have done that anyway.

I would then excuse myself - go into the kitchen, pick up his food and take it out to him. 

Sad but true - to this day they still think I once had a tame fox called Fred

The following  web site is a mine of information. The tabs for each page are below the picture of the fox at the top of the page.

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That fox looks to be in very good condition Alan, they will come out in daytime hours to search for food especially if they have young mouths to feed.

The fox was licking its fur a bit here and there but no more than our dog used to do when it was settling down. It seemed to be healthy enough as it trotted around the garden.

I like to keep the garden a bit on the wild side, especially the part furthest away from the house. Perhaps the fox finds this agreeable. The house next door is unoccupied most of the time and the garden unkempt. Maybe it is living somewhere in there.

I'm pleased to see how healthy the fox looks - but so did Fred when he first appeared in the garden - which is why I posted my experience.

As an aside - from my observations foxes walk like models on the catwalk - they put their feet almost perfectly in front of each other in the same spot. The effect is most obvious by the narrow groove they leave in the snow.

They also appear to walk the same path in their nightly vigil.  Feeding my ex-fox in the same place resulted in a groove in my lawn about 2" wide which started at his entry point through a small gap in the fence at the top of the garden (or is it 'bottom' of the garden, I'm never sure which is right) down the length of the lawn to his feeding spot, then at an angle down to the side entry alongside the house. At this point it scaled the fence and walked along it (just like a cat) until it reached the front of the house, jumped down onto the front lawn and cut another groove across the lawn to the drive entrance on the street.

I find them fascinating animals. Unfortunately we don't get regular foxes where we live now.