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.
Posted By Foxy Lady on June 8, 2012
Fantastic Mr Fox and I finally got back from holiday in early May, and did the foxes cooperate by coming out and showing themselves immediately? They did not… largely because it was still raining. But eventually they showed up — by the 10th May we managed to get a few shots of Mrs Fox and the cubs pottering about on the lawn.
Posted By Foxy Lady on June 4, 2012
May 8th had better weather than many of the preceding days (possibly working up to Foxy Lady’s return from holiday — who knows). Aunty Fox had drawn the short straw for cub-wrangling duty, and she was certainly kept busy as they took over the lawn…
Posted By Foxy Lady on June 3, 2012
Fox cubs, much like small animals of many other species, love to find new things to play with. Actually, what they found on May 7th was second-hand at the very least, and quite possibly had been stashed in the garden by last year’s cubs… but this empty Red Bull can was definitely providing them plenty of amusement, as well as something to test their teeth on.
I’m glad it was empty — these little guys are energetic enough as they tear round the garden without adding caffeine into the mix… (More seriously, I would expect that caffeine is as bad for foxes as it is for dogs.)
(Once again we are indebted to Foxy Lady Junior for the photos)
Posted By Foxy Lady on June 1, 2012
Fox cubs generally start out black or very dark grey — although in my experience of watching them so far, it’s very unusual to see them out in the open when they’re still properly black. (The only time I’ve seen one still that colour was in 2010 where I disturbed one near its den, a couple of weeks before they came out into the main part of the garden.) They mature through a darker brown and eventually to the paler brown/red that we more often associate with foxes. In these photos from 6th May (courtesy of Foxy Lady Jr again), you can see that some of the cubs are starting to change to their “adult” colour — and also that they are big fans of wrestling with one another!
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 29, 2012
Let me introduce you to Aunty Fox.
Aunty is the slightly smaller and, one might assume, younger female who has been helping Mrs Fox with the cubs. Before we started seeing the cubs in the garden, Mrs Fox and Aunty Fox had often been seen curled up together in the sunshine.
The gallery below shows the cubs attempting to suckle from Aunty. We really don’t know whether what we have here is two litters — one produced by Mrs and one produced by Aunty — who are being raised together, or whether all the cubs were produced by Mrs and Aunty is just a helper. Most often, the helper foxes are offspring from previous years’ litters, but Aunty can’t be from last year’s group as both of those cubs were male. She didn’t seem to be around helping with last year’s litter… we just aren’t sure, and short of getting DNA samples from all concerned, we never will be!
Aunty and Mrs Fox seem to take turns, to some degree, in keeping an eye on the cubs. Aunty is most often the one who’s seen watching out for the food of an evening, though…
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 28, 2012
You may remember that before we had this warmer weather (in the UK, at least), it rained for a while… say, a month or two. Today, I put it to you that there are few things more adorably pathetic than soggy fox cubs…
One or two people have asked about the slightly unusual fur pattern that Mrs Fox is sporting — shaggy on top, neatly trimmed across the back end. This is because both Mrs Fox and Aunty Fox (the other female who has been helping her out) had mange over the winter and in the earlier spring. (Oddly, Mr Fox did not seem to succumb.) We added the treatment available from Wildlife Aid to their food for a few weeks and it seems to have cleared it up.
(Foxy Lady was still away at this point, so once again it is Foxy Lady Junior we must thank for the photos.)
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 24, 2012
… it’s a tough life being a mother of six. Watching the cubs interact with their parents is always fun — at this stage (these photos were taken on 1st May) the vixen seems resigned to a life of providing milk forever and a day, but of course we all know she’ll start dissuading them from feeding sooner or later.
(Once again, these photos were taken by Foxy Lady Junior, FL’s sister.)
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 23, 2012
One thing I’m afraid you’re not going to get quite as much of, this year, is captions on the photos. There are lots and lots of photos — you need not feel like you’ll be short-changed there! — but Foxy Lady is ridiculously busy right now and thinks it’s more important to get some of the photos up where you can see them rather than worrying about having them all neatly captioned. (And if we run out of photos from this year? Well, there’s still plenty from last year that haven’t seen the light of day just yet. Likewise, videos. Really: content, we have it.)
These photos were taken by Foxy Lady Junior on the first day the cubs showed their faces (30th April 2012). You can see what we mean about the cubs being a bit more advanced when they first came out than they were last year and the year before — the previous years, they tended to stay close to the bushes at the far end of the garden for the first few days. This year? Up on the patio on day 1. Well, it makes it easier to photograph them…
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 22, 2012
We were beginning to wonder, this year.
Mrs Fox — and it is the same Mrs Fox as last year — had been hanging around the garden and definitely interested in the food we put out. Mr Fox was also occasionally to be seen. So, too, to our surprise, was another vixen — somewhat smaller than Mrs Fox, but certainly tolerated by her; we saw them curled up together in the sun a couple of times, on those rare occasions when there was sun!
We could tell that Mrs Fox was suckling cubs (the nipples are pretty obvious), but where were the cubs? We did wonder if perhaps the den was in a different garden and if Mrs Fox and the other vixen were just nipping into our garden in search of food. It was getting on towards the end of April and still we’d seen no cubs — not even overnight on Foxcam.
Foxy Lady and her other half went on holiday for a few days, leaving Foxy Lady Junior (FL’s sister) in charge. It didn’t take long… it was only two days after we’d left that the excited email came through: “FOX CUBS!!!!”
Foxy Lady confesses that one or two rude words may have passed her lips at that point.
It soon became clear that it wasn’t just “cubs”, it was “LOTS of cubs”. In fact we have a total of six this year!
They seemed to be a bit further advanced when first seen than the previous years’ cubs. We aren’t sure whether this was because Mrs Fox simply didn’t let them out of sight for a while longer, there being more of them (those of you who were reading last year may remember that there were only two cubs back then). Alternatively, perhaps the truly foul weather during April — persistent heavy rain — kept them under cover. It may also be the case that their “home” territory seems to be a bit further across the garden and out of Foxcam’s view.
We’re not sure — but we’re glad they’re out and about now…
Posted By Foxy Lady on May 22, 2012
The very first sighting of this year’s cubs!