Rough and tumble
Posted By Foxy Lady on June 8, 2010
The 19th May was obviously a bumper day for photos — below is the second half of that day’s haul. The cubs were feeling particularly frisky….
Garden Fox Watch
Watching a family of foxes growing up in my back garden.
Our garden foxes...
Welcome to the Garden Fox Watch blog, detailing the life and times of the family of foxes that are growing up in our back garden.
Foxes vs humans
Posted By Foxy Lady on June 7, 2010
Many of you (in the UK, at least) will have seen the report of a fox attacking two babies in east London. There is some discussion here on the BBC News site about how unusual this is.
Perhaps the foxes in Hackney are bolder than those around here — several people seem to be describing needing to shoo them out of their gardens, but the foxes I’ve seen in this area will usually run away as soon as a human comes anywhere near them. Even our regularly-fed foxes won’t usually come out to get their food while we’re in the garden. As for coming into the house, once in a long while we’ve noticed them trying the cat flap, to little avail (the cat flap is set such that only our own cats can enter). We’re unlikely to leave windows sufficiently far open that a fox could get in, anyway, but it isn’t the foxes that concern us – it’s the other neighbourhood cats!
Making the lawn their own…
Posted By Foxy Lady on June 4, 2010
Well, perhaps not quite; the cats still stroll around earlier on in the day, before the foxes come out for their constitutional around 2.15 pm. They’re quite regular about that; emerge and lounge around on the lawn for a while, sunbathe, possibly indulge in a little chasing one another round the pond, and then head back behind the bushes until it’s getting towards tea time…
As ever, click on the photos to see the larger version, click again to close it. These are from 19th May.
A backlog
Posted By Foxy Lady on June 4, 2010
The plus point of warmer weather and more active foxes: yay, foxes!
The minus points of warmer weather and more active foxes: more media to sort through and catalogue.
To give you an example, when I swapped out the data card from Foxcam this morning, it had 153 new items on it. Even accounting for the fact that some of those will undoubtedly be birds or cats setting off the motion detector, that’s a bit over an hour’s worth of video to check (in 30-second clips).
But enough whinging; have some pretty fox photos instead. This first few are from 18th May, with one of the cubs on the tiles, and you might want to compare them with this set from 28th April; the cubs are definitely growing apace…
The fox takeaway
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 24, 2010
Usually, when I’ve put down food for the foxes, things happen in the following order:
- The local bird life descends to grab what they can before the foxes get to it. This usually includes a couple of pigeons (after the peanuts), a magpie or two (after whatever they can get, frankly), and at least one crow. The crows are especial fans of the cheese, although empirical evidence suggests that crows cannot fit two chunks of cheese across their beaks — two pieces lengthwise is not a problem, however.
- Mrs Fox turns up to take some of the more easily-portable pieces of food back to the den, or to be cached in other places nearby. Some of the places the foxes cache food really don’t seem to be worth the extra effort; they often stash some next to the pond, which must be all of four feet from where it was put down in the first place. Mrs Fox will usually come out a few times.
- Some or all of the cubs start accompanying Mrs Fox, and they’re mostly happy to eat the food in situ rather than taking it any distance away for stashing — although they may take it a few feet away from the feeding area for closer inspection or to play with it.
These photos are from 14th and 17th May; the weather wasn’t up to much on those days and the cubs didn’t come out during daylight (or at least what my camera will believe is daylight!) But Mrs Fox was quite happy to take some food back to the den from the Fox Takeaway that is our lawn of an evening…
Tuesday 18th
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 21, 2010
Three more videos for you (and there’s another one on our YouTube channel). We have foxes playing the Up and Under game (now there’s a reference that’ll lose a lot of people…), also hurdling, and there’s the reappearance of an old friend…
Wrestling, pouncing and hedgehog-worrying
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 21, 2010
I have four videos here for you from Monday. We prove that there are still four fox cubs — despite the fact that we don’t often see all of them out together, they are still here. There’s also another snapshot of the eternal struggle to be on top; some Advanced Leaping and Pouncing practice; and finally, another round of Fox Vs Hedgehog…
Too cute to keep up with
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 21, 2010
Sorry things have been a little quiet this week, folks. Big work project and also the foxes have been producing too much cuteness — I can’t keep up! I’ve got videos, I’ve got photos, all coming to a post near you very soon…
The Dog and Fox
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 19, 2010
While our cats may not be playmates with the foxes, here’s a story from the BBC about a dog and fox who have become friends.