Two late-night observations
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 18, 2010
1) my cat can outrun a fox, just about;
2) an adult fox, hitting a locked cat-flap at full tilt, will not break that cat-flap.
I would love to know what caused that altercation!
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.
They’re for the high jump
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 18, 2010
In the past few days, the cubs seem to have taken to attempting to vault over their mother. She’s still quite a bit bigger than they are, so you can imagine how successful they usually are(n’t).
Below the fold are four videos from the evening of 15th May — we’re getting a lot of new videos each day at the moment so we’re a little behind with the uploads, but we should be able to catch up over the next few days. Here you have some interrupted grooming, some attempts to jump over the vixen and finally what looks like a full-blown steeplechase… (There are a couple more videos on our YouTube channel.)
For fox sake…
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 18, 2010
Our cubs haven’t ventured out of the garden yet, and the adult foxes have so far proved adept at negotiating the traffic (thankfully our road is fairly quiet), but the BBC reports on a village that has acquired some fox-related signage.
Eating and playing
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 15, 2010
Eating and playing do seem to be the two main activities of the young foxes’ lives. (Probably also “sleeping”, but we don’t see that.) Playing with food is also popular.
Here are some of the overnight videos, for your amusement; the first one includes a cub wanting to be really sure his cube of bread is dead, the second involves the fox-cub all-in wrestling championship, and the last features some truly appalling table manners on the part of the cubs. (There are also a couple more on our YouTube channel.)
Only slightly foxed
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 14, 2010
The foxes have been less visible than usual over the last day or two (just as I announced this blog to the world, of course; timed for maximum awkwardness). Possibly they’ve just been put off by the chilly weather; maybe the cats are giving them some aggro; perhaps the cubs are getting to that awkward adolescent stage and are doing the fox equivalent of sulking in their room playing emo music and not coming out for meals. Whatever the cause, all I have in videos from last night is some footage of Mrs Fox coming out for food and then going back into the bushes — not really worth uploading.
Have some photos from a couple of days ago to make up for it. As ever, click on the thumbnails to see the photos and click anywhere on the resulting large photo to close it.
Pigeon-worrying, in motion
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 13, 2010
Yesterday’s video includes some lovely footage of the Cub Versus Pigeon incident of which I posted pictures. The best part is that the pigeon is daft enough to come back for a second attempt at the food; I suppose (most) birds are not known for their intelligence…
Catch the pigeon, catch the pigeon
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 12, 2010
To my surprise, the cubs were on the early turn today; out and about in the garden around 9am, which is most unusual for them. There was a certain amount of rough and tumble, and then one of the cubs took it upon him or herself to stalk a pigeon, which was attempting to finish up the leftover fragments of one of last night’s slices of bread.
Not surprisingly the pigeon got away, but watching the attempt was fun!
Strange sights
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 11, 2010
I really hope that Foxcam has picked up the strange vision I saw about half an hour ago; a fox cub purposefully trotting back towards its den, carrying a slice of bread in its mouth. Mostly strange because the slice of bread was about the size of the cub’s head… Also, apparently slices of bread are worthy adversaries which require careful stalking before being pounced on. Who knew?