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 need a leash
Posted By Foxy Lady on April 23, 2011
Several of the overnight Foxcam video clips seemed to show Mrs Fox having to go off and retrieve one of the cubs who’d ventured further than she thought safe. Realistically that was probably only a bit further out across the lawn — I can’t tell, as they were out of Foxcam’s field of view — but it definitely shows the cubs are getting bolder.
Still only two visible (I thought there might have been three on one of the clips, but on careful re-watching I think the third set of eyes belonged to one of the adults). And from having seen the two cubs suckling from Mrs Fox out in the open, if there are one or more further cubs, they’re getting seriously short-changed on the milk front…
Anyhow, here’s today’s compilation!
Today’s video
Posted By Foxy Lady on April 22, 2011
Here’s the collection of the best video clips from last night — the cubs were out a little bit during the day, but not far enough onto the lawn to trigger FoxCam’s motion detector, it would seem. Also, it looked as though it was a bit warm for them; not usually a phrase you’d expect to use in April!
I do have some nice photos but they need a little more work before I let them out — they were towards the end of the day and the light was waning. They’ll be out eventually.
The training montages…
Posted By Foxy Lady on April 21, 2011
Foxcam records video for a maximum of 30 seconds at a time, and uploading lots of little bits to YouTube has the potential to be a pain for me, and irritating to navigate for you guys — so I’ve decided to try compiling the best bits from each day into one longer video. Think of them as fox cub training montages; you may hum “Eye Of The Tiger” over them if it’ll help 🙂 (I did consider trying to put appropriate foxy music over them but there are probably only so many times I could use either Rilo Kiley’s Portions For Foxes or anything by the Fleet Foxes before people started to complain.)
Under the fold are the first three montages from 19th, 20th and 21st April. The last of them has the first video footage of one of the cubs coming out in daylight.
It’s Tough Being A Mum
Posted By Foxy Lady on April 20, 2011
I think today’s gallery could be summed up as “It’s Tough Being A Mum”. You have to ride herd on your rambunctious offspring and then, THEN they demand to be fed. In public! Well, I can confirm that Fox Towers has no laws against public cub-feeding… in fact we think it’s rather cute.
Videos later on, it took a while to edit and tag this lot!
Fox among the flowers
Posted By Foxy Lady on April 20, 2011
I have a LOAD of new cub photos and video to put up this evening, but just as a stop-gap: this is Mrs Fox admiring the pigeons on our roof from a few days ago… Enjoy.
Welcome to 2011’s cubs
Posted By Foxy Lady on April 19, 2011
….. aaaaand there goes my productivity for the next couple of months 😉
Click on the picture for a larger version.
BULLETIN: this news just in
Posted By Foxy Lady on April 18, 2011
First fox cub of the year just seen trotting along behind Mrs Fox! Pictures when I can get them.
A few links
Posted By Foxy Lady on April 17, 2011
A few links to keep you amused while waiting for our foxes to show their faces:
Orphaned fox cubs adopt cuddly toy as surrogate mother (from the Epsom Guardian)
Fox cub rescued from storm drain (from the BBC)
Taming wild animals — the National Geographic cover story from their March 2011 issue (I’m sure many of you will have seen this already, including the lovely cover photo). The article discusses the domestication of several types of wild animals, including foxes.