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.
Sunning themselves
Posted By Foxy Lady on March 26, 2017
Not sure if we have a breeding pair in our garden this year, but on a recent sunny day we were visited by two of the local crew, pottering around for food and enjoying the weather. The first of them (the first six photos) did also sit down for a while, but those photos didn’t come out so well.
This chap is evidently attractive to foxes
Posted By Foxy Lady on November 29, 2016
Stew, anyone?
Posted By Foxy Lady on October 27, 2016
So we had some leftover stew that none of the humans wanted; we figured we’d see whether the local foxes fancied it. Oh yes. Definitely. The elapsed time from it being put out to the appearance of (one of) our friendly fox(es) was somewhat less than ten minutes. (The magpies turned up only a little afterwards, but they didn’t want to tangle with the fox!)
This fox is looking pretty well-fed; plumping up for the colder weather, I suppose.
“Everyday Foxism”
Posted By Foxy Lady on June 5, 2016
There was a great article in yesterday’s Guardian about “everyday foxism” (which is a terrific, and accurate, phrase) — read it here.
On the prowl
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 22, 2016
So late last month, Mrs Fox — for, in this set, we have definite evidence of her being female, in the form of obvious nipples — took some time out to sunbathe and prowl the garden to see what food was out there…
We’ve still not seen any sign of cubs in our garden, though they are doubtless in the local area! But our friend the Bad Witch is lucky enough to have a cub playing in her garden recently — here’s the evidence!
The Return
Posted By Foxy Lady on April 21, 2016
Why yes, it has been a while, hasn’t it?
We don’t know whether we have foxes living in our garden at the moment, but we certainly have regular visitors; see below. (The first evening with decent light, the camera at hand, and a fox who decided to turn up in a while.) This one was certainly keen on the rather elderly roast chicken that we’d decided to recycle by leaving it out for them. Mind you, so were the local magpies!
Hoping we might see some cubs in the next few weeks, although it is a bit early yet, I think.
Moving in and taking over
Posted By Foxy Lady on September 13, 2015
Hi folks! Been a while, hasn’t it — the local foxes have not chosen our garden as their territory just lately, so we’ve not had any pretty pictures to share. But we do have some from a friend of the blog, Ms Vixen, who lives a couple of towns away; their local foxes have raised two cubs this year and, well, as you’ll see below, they’re really quite friendly!
Ms Vixen’s family includes a cat, who is entirely happy for the foxes to hang around in his garden; if nothing else, it apparently discourages some of the other local cats from coming in to beat her cat up!
(No… the fox has not yet tried to use the cat’s litter tray.)
Thanks to Ms Vixen for sending these over!
Rough and tumble
Posted By Foxy Lady on June 15, 2012
I thought I’d catch up on some of the videos from last month… here are some from May 2nd, taken by Foxy Lady Junior. The cubs were very active!
Runty
Posted By Foxy Lady on June 11, 2012
In a litter of six, you’d expect there to be a runt. Last year, with only two cubs ever visible, they were fairly even in size; the year before, with four, there was definitely one who was a little bit smaller than the others. But Runty McRuntersdottir, the littlest female in this year’s litter, is really noticeably smaller than her siblings.
These photos are from May 11th — so, exactly a month ago today — and you can see that she was then not only smaller, but quite a bit darker than the others. (Don’t forget that the cubs start out dark and change colour as they get older.) Also, at this point she appeared to have a problem with her eye; we wondered about deformity, but looking closely at these and other photos, it appears that her inner eyelid was partly covering the eye — possibly a slight infection, possibly an over-enthusiastic sibling had caught her eye with a paw or claw. There wasn’t anything we could usefully do about it, but I’m pleased to report that it seems to have cleared up altogether; Runty’s around and thriving, catching up a bit in size, and joining in the rough and tumble of cub life fully.
