Foxwatching in Dublin

Totem

2010-02-20T21:07:00.002Z

Well today I saw a fox and about time too, say I. And was this fox sighted in the neighbourhood of our temporary abode? No, it was not. It was on a site visit to the rubble-strewn wasteland that is our real house, currently unoccupied.

Of course I had to check on my little ponds - (not a sign of frogspawn, thin sheets of ice) and the wall crossing beside the grass heap. At the latter a very strong smell of fox. Nothing to be seen in Martin's, though. I checked the shed and was glad to notice the underground entrances smooth as if from use. Looking over the back wall into Jackson's, I heard a scuffle and glancing to my left, glimpsed a large fox climbing to its feet and gracefully loping away. I could only see that it was a bright orangey colour, thickly furred (suitable for the coldest winter in 40 years!) and had a small neat white tail tag.

Well that did me the world of good, it has been far too long since I saw my totem animal. Of course we do see them at night if coming home late, etc. in the Dublin streets - but proper suburban dwellers seem to be missing from the nearby district where we now reside.

By the way the house is coming along nicely but the garden will need radical remodelling!

New Year, new house, new animals

2010-01-03T10:13:00.003Z

Hello there! It's been far too long since I posted anything.
Just to update - there was practically NO visible fox activity for those months anyway.
They were about in the neighbourhood, but they sure were avoiding my garden and the nearest gardens: food left out at night would be taken, but otherwise nor hide nor hair was seen.

Well....fast forward: we have moved house, temporarily: our own place is having some long-overdue renovating, which includes demolishing and rebuilding the kitchen and garage...and the builder wants us OUT, with every twig and leaflet that we own, (which is lots.)

So we are now installed in a bungalow about a mile away, very near the N11, with our furniture and possessions around us and a dreary little north-facing garden.

What we have seen, several times, are squirrels: grey ones of course, on the ground, and in the grounds of a nearby school. I'm told they are very good eating...any offers??
I saw no sign of any foxes until this week when snow lay on the ground, and took the chance to check the garden for prints.
Lots of woodpigeons, small birds and - yes, look! Fox prints!! Just one little line of but I'm happy.
So I upgraded the bird-feeding arrangements to a largish upturned wooden drawer as a suitable feeding table and now await developments.
That was yesterday, and the inviting, smelly end of a Brie rind that was left out overnight is still there..but we'll work on this and lure them in.
New Year resolutions: to post regularly, here on the blog...and a happy New Year to all my readers!

All quiet on the western front

2009-08-30T17:47:00.003+01:00

If there's one think foxes love, it's heat. And if there's one thing that they hate, it's rain.
So that might explain why we have seen so little of our fox family this summer.
Barring a couple of glimpses which I have not yet described:

Once, for instance, I went down the garden to the compost bins and tossed my bucketful of scraps into its container. I noticed the foxy smell and glanced at the hollowed-out places under the nearby shed. They are well worn by now...
Outside one of these runways a straggly end of marmalade fur lay limply on the earth:
-Oh no, I thought, one of the little brutes has killed a cat!
(you always hear of this but never seen it...)
Bending over to look closer, the "end of fur" was hastily pulled under the shed to the sound of agitated clonks and scuffles from below...an overcrowded home with no room to stow a tail away!

That was a couple of weeks ago and not much has been seen since.

However last week there was a fine hot day, a nice novelty, and there sure enough, punctual as clockwork, lay a young fox on Mary Martin's concrete path, blissfully snoozing in the sunshine!
I couldn't see which one it was, but one of the Middles is likeliest.
Mama fox has not been sighted, and Sandy has not been seen either.
But today, a very small fox appeared on my terrace while we prepared lunch. She checked the dishes and scampered away.
Small, dainty and a bit thin, it was certainly Charmer.
Didn't I say that the small ones are often survivors?

Little charmer!

2009-06-30T22:21:00.004+01:00

We have been watching the fox family, and feeding them. Although I always leave food on a plastic dish beside my frog-pond, others are less careful: My neighbour's garden is a wilderness of shredded packaging. In fact, another neighbour, also elderly, is away on holidays and I am watering her houseplants. Her back lawn is also covered with rubbish, including a shopping bag spilling out onions and potatoes. How do foxes know when a garden is unvisited?
Yesterday P and I stood at our bedroom window looking at the vixen and one of the cubs: comfortably couched quite near us, playfully nuzzling and nipping, grooming, open-mouthing and generally the picture of relaxed affection. The mother has quite bad mange so the drops I add to her food have not helped much if at all. I can only let Nature take its course - the possible interventions are all complicated, uncertain and possibly counterproductive.
Today I went down the garden and stood up on my grass-clippings pile to squint over the wall into Martin's. out from the shrubbery on my right trotted the smallest of the cubs, quite oblivious of me: I was downwind of him, above him, but only about 10 feet away!
S/he paused and cocked her head, pointing perfectly like any retriever, poised on three paws, the fourth daintily lifted. Then she scampered back into the bushes, entirely unworried and unhurried.
I have seen this little charmer before: the cub family consists of a Large (Sandy) two Mediums, (nameless) and a Smallest, this little sweetheart here. Many fox families that we have seen over the years follow this pattern: the littlest one is often one of the survivors, because the shyest and most cautious!
It is impossible to sex fox cubs by eye alone but I'm guessing female, fairly randomly I admit, just because she seems so delicate and feminine i.e. small! I hereby christen her Charmer!

Four cubs and a vixen

2009-05-26T22:19:00.002+01:00

Calloo callay! Spotted tonight, bounding around in the long grass of Martins' uncut lawn; first Sandy, the groundbreaker. Then another very small cub. Then a third, and then Mama, shaking her head Mary Poppins-style and sitting down heavily under the palm tree to watch her brood. And then we noticed that two cubs were scrapping to our left. And another two to our right. Definitely four! That is,unless a last and shyest one has yet to appear.
They scamper and swivel like otters, like greyhounds: they are very fast and they love to chase, one of them had a ball of white paper, it appeared, and the others pursued and hunted it.
Wow, I love watching cubs play! And we have had a couple of years with no cubs.
This bunch we assume to be the young Stringfellow tribe: ominously, their Mama has a large bare patch of mange on her left haunch. I will dose their food carefully from now on...now we must choose names for all the cubs.
All are sandy, a surprisingly pale colour for a fox. Almost beige, some of them.
Sandy, big brother. What else is sandy or beige? beaches? deserts?
All suggestions gratefully received...

Cub

2009-05-24T22:33:00.003+01:00

We have been seeing a half-grown cub in our garden and next door. He, or, of course, she, was first seen very shortly after the sad demise of Stringfellow. He is a good size and sometimes seen with an adult. If he was born, as most cubs are, around St Patrick's Day, he is better grown than some would be at this stage.
It is unusual that we have seen no others: a single-cub litter seems rare to us who have watched fox families for years. But it is possible that there is a more unpleasant explanation...
For the first few weeks after birth, the cubs remain underground in the breeding earth, with their mother. The dog fox brings food for her which he lays outside. Gradually the little foxes' blue eyes open and their chocolate brown fur becomes paler. After a while the vixen begins to leave them for short periods and the children, left alone, fight among themselves. This may account for the tumult of yelping, shrieking and growling that we have sometimes heard at dead of night very early in the year: I read somewhere that the cubs fight for dominance at this time and it may happen that the strongest one kills all the others.
Or possibly, Stringfellow and his missus just had a small family!
Whatever the reason, Sandy is so called because he is sandy in colour, quite pale for a fox cub, and full of mischief! He has been skittering around Martin's, exploring the lawn, sunbathing, and jumping around the adult that we presume is his mother, the quondam Mrs Stringfellow.
Fox cubs are as charming as puppies and kittens and just as lively: a delight to watch! Poor Mary Martin now has a garden full of ripped plastic bags, chewed shoes and food wrappers...ah well, kids grow up fast!

Rest in peace

2009-05-01T19:22:00.002+01:00

I heard along the neighbourly grapevine how Stringfellow's story ended. We last saw him crawling along the hedge of the house directly behind mine, on a Monday. Evidently he had a way through, for the following Wednesday, the mother of that household found a dead fox about midday on the grass verge in front of her house. She found that a local vet would not dispose of the body free of charge, but the body was eventually removed by the DSPCA. The description corresponds exactly with poor Stringfellow, who apparently hung on for about 48 hours from when we saw him.
Mange is a horrible, horrible thing: material for another post!

Stringfellow

2009-04-20T23:40:00.009+01:00

What a lovely morning it was today. I strolled around the garden, inspecting violets, checking on tadpoles, etc. Noticing that the fox food from last night was gone, but a strong smell lingered in the still, dewy air. I had gardeners coming to do some chores today so I went and fetched the petrol can and put it on the terrace table. Some bluebottles flew up.
We have suspected a leak in the sewage pipe near that spot. I peered under table, but could see nothing. A home-made hutch for Cleo the cat to sleep out in is under that table too, but Cleo was indoors. So why was there a paw sticking out?
I backed away from the table, and peered directly under it. There, not one foot from my own toes, was a fox in the box, on top of Cleo's cushion.
I promise you, gentle readers, I was so gobsmacked I was breathless! I ran quickly and quietly into the house and got my mobile phone, took a couple of pics. Fox barely moved - in fact at first I had thought it might be dead!
A runny eye blinked, flies buzzed around. The camera-phone has no zoom. But luckily, just then, I heard my husband arriving home from an early-morning errand. I called him, and son no, 4, to view the fox. "Pretty cool!"
Patrick is a keen photographer and he fetched his excellent camera. Took several shots of the fox in the box, and then the fox got uneasy and began to come out. We were shocked to see the mangy hindquarters so close - naked haunches: septic scabs: lame left back leg. He limped off down the garden.

Later, when the gardeners were working, one of them pointed out our poor sick fox asleep in the picnic area, and reported seeing him unable to jump the wall: banging his head as if blind in one eye, which was indeed very suppuratey.

I phoned the DSPCA, in distress: thay said that they would send a van if we could get it into a crate. But our attempts only caused Stringfellow to crawl through the only possible gap into a neighbouring garden, (Cassidys) and then further out of sight, unreachable.

So that was that. Poor creature, he looked on his last legs. Probably dead by now, already.
It was the nearest we ever were to one of our own foxes, and rather touching to see him in the cat's hutch. Near his food supply, in a comfy spot.
I think now of his vixen, probably nearby with cubs, but not in our or Martin's garden:
There is a row of houses further up where all the owners are elderly and their long gardens probably overgrown. Of course a sensible vixen will choose there. She will have to defend the cubs herself now.

Take a look at this!

2009-04-16T22:46:00.002+01:00

Spotted by my husband on YouTube: lovely film of a fox in, I think, Yellowstone Park.

Wildlife watching in Offaly

2009-04-11T07:58:00.004+01:00

Carl stood on the canal bank, fishing. Behind him, lower, was the cottage. On the opposite bank, fields sloped upwards to the road. All was quiet in that remote spot.
Carl turned away, pausing in his work: he needed more ground bait from the picnic table in the cottage garden.
Returning up the bank to the waterside, he heard a sizeable splash.
"Hmm, that's a good-size fish for me to catch", he thought.
Resuming his rod, he gazed at the water: but the surface was undisturbed. Then greatly to his surprise an animal climbed out of the water on the far side: it scrambled up the bank, shook itself, paused and looked back at the amazed Carl, and trotted away up the slope along the western hedgerow. Was it an otter? The first, likeliest guess? No. A dog? No. A mink, a stoat? No.
It was a fox. Definitely, unmistakeably. Carl is from South Dublin: he knows foxes well.
In fact, at the cottage, foxes are rarely seen. The few previous sightings were both in the area of that self-same western hedge of the opposite field - evidently a traditional track.
Could the fox have been swimming to catch fish? I've never heard of this! Though Carl reports that fish are scarce this year. And foxes are known to eat dead fish on the seashore.
Perhaps the fox routinely hunts on this side the canal, and prefers to take a shortcut home, instead of a 2-kilometre walk via the bridge.
Maybe the fox only checks out our side when people are about, because there may be food scraps in the compost, or bait.
Maybe he was hiding, taken by surprise, waiting his chance to get clear: I've seen foxes do this, they are very collected.
By the way, there is no other inhabited house nearby on our side: no henhouse or animal feed, no dustbins. Plenty of birds in our trees, and some mice and rats no doubt. One other holiday cottage, some cattle, troughs, rushes and boggy fields.
We have seen, over the years, rabbits and hares, and sheep. There are ducks and moorhens, herons and swans on the canal. So I suppose an enterprising fox could arrange to feed a young family, if he was willing to take a swim! At this time of year, there may well be cubs underground in the care of their mother. Papa fox must forage for them all.
Still, it was a very unusual sighting: and I am very pleased to record it here!

Mortality rate

2009-04-05T10:47:00.005+01:00

Well, I did put green plastic trellis over the two little ponds. Alas, it mustn't have been tight enough: the spawn is all gone from the upper pond. I had left a gap so that the frog itself would be able to get in and out...fox must have nuzzled its head underneath at one side and scoffed the lot!
However, spawn survives in the black plastic one: developing well.
I have spent time over the last few weeks planting trees with the Irish Wildlife Trust, and a couple of little hollies at the cottage. Last autumn's hazels are doing well...
I stopped filling the bird feeders, and now see many fewer birds! The official guidance is to keep it up until about June, but I forgot...
Warm weather has warmed the soil, grass is growing, plants shooting up.

FOXES: We have seen nothing, not a sausage. Well, a sausage, yes...one little scat on the lawn. Overnight food gone. Frogspawn vanished.
10 days ago I heard night screaming, yelping, growling, snarling, at about 2 a.m. Maybe 2 animals, tho' it's hard to tell. I ventured to hope that it represented the mother fox giving birth, as I seem to remember that the same happens each year about this time...but it's a secret life they lead.
Denning is underground, and that's where the babies stay for 6 weeks or so. And adults are very cagey at this time, so it's mostly guesswork and patience until May. We shall see!

Action stations

2009-03-15T19:39:00.005Z

Well, whoever was splashing in the pond has finally scored. Frogspawn in both ponds.
(N.B. They are tiny, converted kitchen sink size!)
It's only a modest amount in each but it's the first time we ever saw spawn in the black pond which is higher off the ground and therefore needs a good leap in and another out.
Many tadpoles have grown up in it, of course, and every autumn we put a piece of plank in to act as a launching pad for little frogs, and leave a strip of long grass around as well.
Anyway, yesterday I actually saw the frogspawn floating to the surface in slow bubbles. Now we must put netting over both ponds so that foxes or birds don't eat it.

Babysitting! Frog's eye view of cameraman

Also, several sightings of our fox, Stringfellow. His tail is indeed mangy as are his haunches, poor thing. Apparently male, white cheek patches rather small, white markings on front legs.
I'm adding mange drops to his food.
Order mange drops from Derbyshire fox rescue, website linked on this page in the list to your right.

I spent a while tidying up the derelict garden today in fine spring weather. Tempting, tantalising, incipient life!

A sighting.

2009-03-04T15:24:00.005Z

No foxes have been seen in our garden for quite a while: and my neighbour's garden, that enticing wilderness, remains empty to the eye, at least by daylight.
Nonetheless, something has begun to knock over the compost bucket outside the kitchen door. Bother! I thought they had stopped doing that. What a mess.
I leave food out most nights and it goes.
Today, at midday, one of my sons had a good sighting (I was out). Down the end of our garden a largish, very red fox nosed about and seemed to dig, finding a whitish object. (I'm guessing, the lamb bone from last night.)
My son did not note the tail shape or the tag, but reports that the haunches were in poor shape. Damn. Mange, always attacks the buttocks first, I don't know why. I must start dosing again.
We can still hope that this fox is one of a mated pair, keeping a low profile.
Last week, on one day I noted splashes in my little Belfast-sink pond, and on another day a leap!
So there are things to be looked for yet.

Amplexus

2009-03-04T14:56:00.004Z

A week ago, on the 23rd of February, I was walking at a Nature Reserve in Co. Wicklow with an old friend. How nice it was to see and hear and smell a touch of Spring, after the very long, very cold winter we have had. (Before it got wintry again this week!)
Towards the end of our rambling, we chanced upon the pond. Splash, rustle, ripple. Frogs were busy here. There we saw a couple together, male over female as frogs do. And as our eyes sharpened on our target, another couple and another. Some single frogs, sizing up the talent, no doubt, hung around the edges. And the merrily mated paddled and swam, clasped together in that strange embrace called "Amplexus".
The word comes from the Latin for "Embrace". The male frog, when woken from his winter stupor, calls from the edge of his pond for a female with his strange mournful cry. When he scores, so to speak, he clasps her from behind, around her waist, and thus linked, they swim together.
They can maintain this posture for long periods: swimming and making those characteristic splashings. The male grips firmly and cannot be loosened or shaken free. Eventually, the female begins to lay her eggs and as they leave her body, the male fertilises them.
Reaching the water, the eggs swell up and are the familiar frogspawn.
Though this was an artificial pond, it has been there for many years and always enjoys spectacular amounts of frog action. Years ago, when I was doing some volunteer work there, tracks could be seen every spring leading from all over the reserve. Up from the river's edge came the otter prints. Foxes left their oval pawmarks. Birds, dogs, everything eats frogspawn!
Spring is always hopeful. I had been sad, anxious over private worries. My friend had listened, as she so often has, patiently and sympathetically, as we walked.
Weather changes, that is its nature. Hope springs, that is nature too. The queer, unthinking, primitive dance of the mating frogs is a powerful strike for optimism.
My heart was as warmed by friendship as our faces were by sunshine, that lovely morning. It's time for the dormant, over-wintering buds to root and grow again.

Watch this!

2009-02-16T20:06:00.004Z

A kind Facebook friend sent me a link to this YouTube video.

If the link doesn't work, just go to Youtube and search for "foxes trampoline".

Amazing! Yet not amazing: foxes are intelligent higher mammals and one of the signatures for that is PLAYING. Foxes are playful, even adult ones. They certainly seem to like the trampoline!

Night screaming

2009-02-09T21:55:00.002Z

Re; previous post. It may have been cool, but it was also darned cold! And continues so, ice on the ground and freezing fog. Ugh.
For two nights in a row over the weekend we were treated to soundbites of foxy relationships.
A high-pitched shrieking sound, which at first you might think was tomcats fighting, but it's not. Foxes have a more "wordy" vocalisation and they are probably finished mating by now. The screaming is more likely to be a territorial dispute, repelling invaders: or a matrimonial row over food.
Whereas the mating habits of cats would be enough to make human eyes water (female ones, anyway) and give devout thanks for not being cats.
I like it when we hear foxes, it tells us and all other creatures in the area that this turf is Taken!

Wow

2009-02-05T23:10:00.002Z

Yes, she's under the shed! This is so amazing. I could follow every step as she went around the garden, methodically checking the compost heap, across the Pit, up to the pond, back down, then a detour back up to the bird feeder, down again and in under the shed! In places I could even faintly see the swished trail left by the brush of the fox, right over the footprints.
I felt like some tracker of the jungle, stepping around in the queer blue snowy moonlight.
This has been really cool!

Snow

2009-02-05T22:19:00.003Z

More thick snow tonight, quite unusual for Dublin, we are having a good bit of snow this week for once.
About 10 tonight a couple of our resident young lads decided to go out in the garden to make, appropriately, snowcones. I went with them to put out food from fridge-clearing.
Well, Snowcone had been here already! I was absolutely thrilled to see the neat line of fox prints, coming up from the shrubbery, around by the pond (where the fox-dish was missing) and back down to the grass-heap. We don't often get to see good spoor so I eagerly looked up my book of animal tracks and signs.
Here I learn that foxes are digitigrade, would you believe that? Well I'd never have guessed (eye roll)
More seriously, I did know to recognise fox prints by their narrow oval shape, most usually seen as a series of tight pairs as the animal trots, their characteristic gait. If these are printed on deep snow, which then melts a little, it can look like a straight line of single prints, which has caused many folk-tales of a one-legged creature hopping in a straight line for miles.
I haven't seen any fox droppings but naturally I recognise those too, a small coiled pile with a pointed tip. Traces of hair in winter, of fruit stones in autumn.
A thought occurs: here's a golden opportunity to find out if the fox is denning under our shed, or in one of the neighbouring gardens. I'm off out again to have a look!

A quick look

2009-02-03T19:53:00.004Z

Snow on the ground and freezing temperatures. I stocked up on birdseed and peanuts for the bird feeders. I've put food out every night for foxes. Last night I had the bright idea of putting the dish under the garden table so that it wouldn't fill up with snow!
Pickings were slim, though. Had to throw on a handful of dry cat food, a new kind that Cleo doesn't like very much.

This afternoon about 3.30, a fox slipped into the Pit and came cautiously up the garden. (Did I explain before that The Pit is our family name for a low oval patio area screened from the house: so called because my father dug it out as a soil supply for levelling further up.)

Well, it's my friend with the pointy tail tag, henceforward to be called Snowcone. S/he spotted me moving at the kitchen window, and froze. So I froze. We stood freezing together...but reassured by my immobility, Snowcone explored the sadly empty fox-dish and went away to the grass-heap, where s/he leaped the wall at the traditional spot.

I feel it is my duty to mention here that the dead fox, adjacent to that spot, may have had a bit of dismemberment...ahem. Lost its head, in fact. Thank God for autumn colour, that's all I say.
Snowcone is a nice clear bronze fox, not very large, very healthy looking though probably hungry. Couldn't guess what sex, though I might hazard a certain feminine daintiness. The clearly separated conical tail tag is unmistakeable.

I'm always happy when I see a fox. It's lucky for me, a totem. SAD has lifted with the bright snow light, and foxes!

Glimpses

2009-01-21T17:13:00.006Z

A couple of days ago, my husband crossed the path of a fox just on the corner of this road at about 6.30 in the evening, dark of course.
He described this one as medium size and with a distinct 2-inch tag.

Earlier today I stood for some time at my bedroom window, entranced by the seething birdlife on the four feeders. Sparrows, robins, pigeons, collared dove, blue tits, coal tits, greenfinches, 3 male blackbirds, song thrush, vividly coloured chaffinch.
Mental note: birds love pastry!

Just as I watched, next door in Martin's a fine amber fox appeared briefly. I couldn't see the tail or any detail through the bushes and it soon went out of sight behind the golden privet, a traditional lying-up spot, covering the access to Behind-her-shed.

Some few minutes later, it re-emerged and crossed the area of fallen tree in her garden.
I got a reasonable good look: Large amber fox, thickly furred and no wonder with the bitter weather we've been having.

The tail tag was clearly marked, a neat white 2-inch cone. It could have been the one Patrick saw, it is definitely not Grizzle. Looks very healthy, no sign of mange.

After freezer cleaning there were some tidbits put out: last night was some cooked salmon, today some thawed chicken livers, too old for me.

I'm annoyed now to look out and see Cleo the cat feasting on liver!

Resourceful scavengers

2009-01-15T19:35:00.003Z

First of all, a link:
http://www.thefoxwebsite.org/index.html

I was idly internetting and decided to revise my knowledge of foxes a little. This website has plenty of useful information in accessible form. I had a read of the comments on fox feeding since this is a topic that frequently arises.
Do many people feed foxes? Yes, a lot of people do! Some enthusiasts buy meat specially but this is unnecessary. Most kitchen scraps are acceptable, except maybe for some vegetables. Any meat trimmings, ends of cheese, stale sandwiches, fruit, sweet stuff (foxes really have a sweet tooth!)
I often wonder if the traditional caution about giving cooked chicken bones to dogs and cats applies to foxes. My guess is that they eat so much found stuff that a chicken carcass is just a mouthful to them! Still, I go a little carefully just in case.
Commonest question: Are they hungrier now that they can't get food out of wheelie bins?
Answer: NO! There are more foxes around the suburbs now than there were ten years ago, and they look pretty well fed. Bird feeders, cat dishes, compost heaps, mice and rats, worms and insects, dead birds, roadkill, dropped fast food like chips and wrappings with pizza crust, apple cores and ends of bread in the schoolyard, and of course, the offerings of suckers like me and many of my neighbours!
One handy thing about the carrion-eating habits of the fox is that they have a palate for food that is quite "high". So that bit of ham or fish in the fridge that is well past it's use-by date can be put out for foxes and do them no harm. This reduces your waste footprint, too.
I'm afraid the corollary is, if a cherished pet has died and been interred with full military honours in your back garden, it is advisable to put a good solid rock or paving slab on top to avoid exhumations...'nuff said.
In the last week, I've put out: the skin from a side of smoked salmon, fat and gristle trimmed from stewing beef, stale cheese sandwich, scrapings of spaghetti bolognese, two mince pies.
Gone, all gone. Signs of passage under my garden shed too. Barking and yikkering at night.
No actual sightings, but signs clear to read.

Grizzle

2009-01-01T14:25:00.003Z

Well, this is a nice New Year's omen. I saw Grizzle twice today. First at about noon, walking away from the fox-dish which had been empty anyway. He, or she, leapt lightly over the wall into Martin's, just at the very spot which is the foxes' traditional crossing-point, and just below which lies the body of his fallen comrade. I'm almost afraid to look, even though the dead body is a little way to the left from the landing point.

An hour or so later I saw him again from the bedroom, sitting under Martins' oak-tree, scratching the back of his or her neck. It got up and trotted briskly away into the old den area and did not reappear. I had put food out but the fox did not go back for it - they never do, somehow. As if their daily schedule must be followed in order. Food has been found on two successive days in that spot during the morning, so it will be checked every morning, and that's that.

Description: Grizzle is a large fox. One can be deceived at this time of year by heavy winter pelage, I know: but Grizzle is not very thickly furred, but actually rather gawky looking. A bony, somewhat elderly, look. Fur on back is a good dark reddy-brown, almost conker colour. Tail thinnish but not apparently mangy. Long and with white tip and whitened along the length a bit, hence the name.

Of course we know what Grizzle is up to. At this time of year, every self-respecting fox is looking for a mate and a breeding territory, in either order. Here is a nice couple of overgrown gardens, one of them very secluded, full of cover, food regularly available nearby, and a history of use by foxes. There's underground earths adjoining, comfy lying-up spots, private playing areas, covered runs and escape routes. Jam for the first comer, in fact. Now bring on the talent and let's make whoopee!

And by the way, Happy New Year!

Calloo Callay!

2008-12-30T16:45:00.003Z

Cold, cold day today. Garden seething with birds. They are enjoying the pond which might be the only bit of open water in tha area - the birds are actually queueing for their baths! The blackbird splashes pleasurably, throwing water around. Meanwhile, a large sparrow waits on the edge of the stone sink. Soon he gets his turn but is buzzed in the water by an impatient greenfinch.

There is plenty of food available to distract those who can't get into the water. I see coal tits, blue tits, greenfinches, robins. On my terrace, a small red-brown whirr of movement is Jenny Wren.

I watch all this, delighted, from my kitchen window. Through the screen of bushes which shelters the lower quarter, a slide of movemrt catches my eye. It is a large fox, coming over the wall from Cassidy's. Entranced, I watch as the brown-red form slides down the wall and turns right, towards the shrubbery, and pauses: only the tail can be seen, held out horizontal, foxy-orange with the white of the tip extending upwards, like an old dog's chin. Grizzled,in fact.

Thrilled, I quickly place some Christmas leftovers in a bowl and hastily put the food in the traditional fox-feeding spot beside the pond. Too much for Cleo the cat, sorry, birds!
Then I went in for an afternoon nap. And when I got up an hour later the food was all gone!

Hurrah hurray calloo callay! The boys are back in town!

Spotters

2008-12-29T22:25:00.004Z

On Christmas Eve, as I was shopping for groceries in Blackrock, I received a text message from a friend, the Education Officer of the Irish Wildlife Trust. It said, paraphrased:
Are you bored with shopping? Then come down to the Liffey quays, between Queen St and the Park. I'm watching an otter, happily playing in the water!
I couldn't get there, but I'm happy for the otter and my friend and the lucky few who got to see an otter at play, in broad daylight in a crowded city!

Same day - my husband was walking down the tree-lined avenue that leads to the N11 and a grey squirrel ran across the road in front of him. They're everywhere...

Today I saw 4 blackbirds in my garden; that is to say, two were dark brown, the ladies.
One of them was in or on the pond, pecking disconsolately at the thick sheet of ice. I went out with a bowl of water and they scattered. Later they were back, fighting among themselves when not tossing over dead leaves, as they do.

The dead fox is being gradually covered with leaves, some blown over, some thrown on by me. It merges imperceptibly with the earth. My hope is that by Spring, I won't have to look at a skeleton!

A very merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T03:49:00.002Z

Season's greetings to all who read here!
Sorry there hasn't been any new post for a month - there simply haven't been any sightings at all. Or soundings.
I was chatting to a neighbour yesterday who agreed with me that the distinctive sound of foxes barking at night has not been heard. It used to be quite a feature of life around here - the winter shrieking of vulpine courtship. And this is right spot on in mating season. But the tawny fellow-tenants have gone quiet.
Sometimes I have ugly daydreams in which I imagine that some evil-spirited citizen is poisoning them all. And it is true that there was an outbreakof animal poisoning a couple of years ago in which several people, including ourselves, lost beloved pets. It was never explained, but I did think that perhaps someone was laying poison for foxes. Even putting out rat poison might be the cause, if cats or foxes would eat poisoned meat.
Let us hope it is nothing of the sort, but only caution and stealth!
A very happy Christmas to all!

Cats

2008-11-24T11:27:00.002Z

Cats are bad for wildlife: I wish we didn't have one, for that reason, even though I'm a cat-lover and my husband thrives on them. The one we have is only being "minded" for a friend who is between homes at the moment. She's sweet, very feminine and feline, (the cat, I mean. The friend is female but human!)
But since we've had her there's been less and less to see in the garden. Apart from mice, I ought to say: Cleo does keep her end of the traditional bargain and has caught a couple. But birds are much fewer.
I was watching a pair of bullfinches the other day. They are so vividly coloured, they stood out like party balloons in the dull garden, feeding from the seeding heads of great willowherb. I watched them with pleasure but it was the only good wildlife observation for a week.
No frogs, dead fox, few birds. This may not all be Cleo's fault of course, but she can't be helping. She was reared as an outdoor cat and still likes to spend the nights outdoors, wreaking who knows what havoc.
Anyway, early next year we must move house for a couple of months while some building work is done on our kitchen so I don't know what will become of Cleo: hopefully her owner will have found a new house by then and can take her back.

The cycles of nature

2008-11-18T09:20:00.003Z

Autumn leaves have turned to gold. The garden has gone quiet. I haven't posted anything for nearly two months. And for why? Been no foxes, that's why.
Cross my heart, I've seen a fox out behind the houses exactly once in the last month: a distant glimpse of one in the next-door garden, stalking away, swishing a full tail on a chilly dusk. I couldn't see if it was one of the regulars, perhaps a pale spot on the hip was a patch of mange?
Last week, driving home late at night, saw one crossing the street further down. And that's been it.
Where have all the flowers gone? (Mournful music...)
Until yesterday.
Down the garden I went with my tub of peelings for the compost bin. And what a pleasant change to see a bit of bright sunshine on a nice mild day. I hopped up on the log-pile to have a squint into Martin's: sometimes you can spot a sleepy fox having a snooze in a corner from this vantage point. Alas, nothing but an autumnal, overgrown garden.
This is the spot where I sometimes toss a few tidbits over the wall, if there is something tasty left over in the kitchen. A few drops of mange medicine are sprinkled on top of, say, a beef bone.
Seized by sudden curiosity, I scrambled to the very top of the slippy heap and peered directly downwards, into the lee of the wall. Really, I wanted to see if the food had gone or was just lying around attracting rats. But I saw nothing except brownish and amber leaves. I looked again and at last realised what I was seeing. A dead fox lay, almost covered with brown leaves, perfectly camouflaged. Right beside where the food must have landed.
The poor thing lay as if resting on its belly, head turned to left. Leaves had drifted around. It was a perfect tableau of life extinguished returning to the earth. By spring it will have vanished.
Taken aback, and upset, I hopped down and considered. Smallish fox - but, then, they always look small close up. Rich amber-to-bronze fur. Full tail, no tag visible. What should I do?
If I jumped down to inspect, and my neighbour looked out and spotted me, she'd have conniption fits about burglars and probably a heart attack. If I went and asked her, she might get all twittery and make a fuss. You see, she doesn't know that I watch her back garden so closely, though I have mentioned it to her of course. But she still could get self-conscious, since she used to be very garden-proud and now can't manage it.
It began to rain soon after, so there would be no post-mortem
This morning, though, having slept on the question, I woke up sure that I had to identify the fox just for the completion of this record, if nothing else. And felt confident that the sprawling bushes would hide me completely. So straight after breakfast, down I went with a long stick. After a bit of hauling logs and huffing and puffing, I was discreetly over the wall and hidden from view under the dark bell of a massive macrocarpa. Sadly I inspected the little corpse, and began to scrape away leaves.
But the poor thing must have been there for weeks. It was intermingled, embedded. I hadn't the heart, or nerve, to turn it over so I don't even know what sex it was (Did we ever, with a fox!)
It was like the one I spotted that twilight evening: possibly a seasonal newcomer. Could have been Ragtip or Roisin. Not Halftail. Too dark for Sandy.
So well did the colour blend with the autumn leaves, so kindly did the underside begin to become soft earth, that I did not continue my explorations, but climbed back over my wall. I had, at least, bidden farewell to a creature that I had in some measure sponsored in its life.

New kid on the block

2008-09-24T23:08:00.005+01:00

I've been watching this kid. A couple of weeks now. How do I know it's a new kid?
He, or she, is sandy brown,much paler than any of the foxes we had this summer. The tail tag is different from any of them too - not ragged, or rounded, or absent.
The throat is very dark, like the Halftail/Ragtip group and rather unlike most of the foxes we have watched for a decade.
This kid behaves differently, too.
Only yesterday I was watching from the bedroom with binoculars and he noticed me. Out of mischief, I opened the window and instead of ignoring this as familiar foxes would have done, he gazed up in alarm and scampered away behind the shed! Our previous tenants would never have done that. This guy is much shyer, or not used to the local regime as yet.
Sandy, as I shall now call him, is clearly the one who has been feeding in my garden. He is often accompanied by another, redder fox who sleeps in the garden at the same time though not with him. I'm guessing that this is still Roisin, looks just like her. I'm also tempted to wonder if Sandy, and not Ragtip, was the target of the "seductive urination" or whatever it was, see second-last post.
What has happened to Halftail? To Ragtip? We may never know. This happens every year and I have become as matter-of-fact about it as the foxes are. Autumn is the time of dispersal, of empire-building. It is also the time of roadkill, lots of corpses on the nearby N11.
We will see what the next season brings.

Secret Service

2008-09-17T22:56:00.004+01:00

It has been too long since I posted anything here. Truth to tell, there hasn't been much foxy action - weather too wet! Sometimes I have seen a grumpy-looking ball of amber fur disconsolate under the big macrocarpa tree, and once a sleeping fox on a rare sunny sunset.
So I was getting pretty disconsolate myself, and then I went out this morning, first fine sunny morning for a long time. And nearly skidded on a coiled pile of fox droppings on the stone steps under my pear tree, just where a person would stand on coming out into the garden. Lucky I didn't slip!
This means two things: One, some fox is checking the compost bucket outside the back door, a traditional spot for them to investigate in spite of me putting on lids and covers! And, Two, some fox is marking territory right here in my garden, in spite of the cat we are currently babysitting.
This was cheering news and there was better to follow. A trail has been formed from the bottom of the garden to the frog pond in the lawn, just where I leave the old frying-pan for feeding foxes!
So someone is checking nightly even though we never see them. But certainly little Cleo the cat couldn't have worn the grass so much, and in fact I've never seen her walk that particular track in the garden.
So I'm quite consoled now, knowing that the foxes have not deserted us.

Pee is for partiality

2008-08-21T10:16:00.003+01:00

We haven't been seeing much of our foxy friends in the gardens because of the really rotten weather. It's been one of the worst summers I remember, rain every day. That's unusual in Dublin which is often very dry. Dwellers in other parts of the country may be more resigned to it -(in places where it rains most days anyway) but I hate it. And foxes hate it too.

I don't know where they go in the wet, but it's certainly never out in the open. I guess they must go into the underground dens or deep under bushes or sheds.
One result of this has been that I've slightly lost touch with them, which explains why I was not absolutely sure, yesterday, if the fox I was watching was really Roisin.

I lookd out of my bedroom window into Martin's garden, and was just in time to see two foxes arriving, sitting down in mid-lawn, stretching: this was about 4.30 pm.
One of them, Ragtip, lay down; but the other was playful and pranced around him. This is cubbish behavior, but it looked like Roisin to me: smaller, redder, with round white tag. This one licked Ragtip on his ears, then turned her back and crouched very near him. You would have thought she was peeing but very close to him. She played around some more and nuzzled his nose, open-mouth greeting him as foxes do.

Ragtip was not much interested in all this interaction and moved to his favourite spot behind a tussock. She followed, trying to stir up a game. She did more grooming, actually licking inside his ears! Then she turned around again and this time I had the binocs on them: she peed abundantly on Ragtip's bronzy haunch. I clearly saw the stream of urine flowing down his fur.
Roisin had been marking grass and outlying bushes etc but I've never seen this before; foxes' urine usually means "this turf is mine". Ragtip did not react to it, by the way: he did not lick the spot or shake himself, but sleepily ignored her.

I am at a loss to understand the incident; why would Roisin twice urinate on the dominant dog-fox in this family group? I've never seen this either between parents and cubs or mated couples.

Several explanations are possible: one is, of course, that I misidentified either or even both. I haven't seen the foxes close up for a while. Maybe Halftail's tail has grown back and is now a narrow, sketchy tail with thin tip. (Don't think so!)

Maybe the smaller one was not Roisin but a large, well-grown male cub from this year's litter.
More possible, but out of the blue, if so.

Maybe they are who they appeared to be and are showing intimate fox behaviour; it's just new to me.

Certainly this is a time of year when younger foxes stretch their wings so to speak: Roisin may have been saying, in effect, "I've been a maiden aunt for one season, but I'll be wanting more next year".
Halftail, this year's working mother, was absent from yesterday's incident and hasn't been seen for a while: the sub-vixen may be now making her bid for the queenship.

I dunno, but it's all very intriguing.

Hello!

2008-08-05T17:53:00.003+01:00

Hello, all my faithful readers! I'm back on duty after a spell of annual leave. We had a very nice holiday in England, thank you, and saw plenty of interesting wildlife: though, oddly, no foxes!
Sad to see the annual death roll of young badgers by the roadside.

Best was seeing birds of prey - one I think was a Hobby - above the South Downs. Also bats in a barn. Also another big bird of prey that shrieked.

This puzzled us: why on earth would this fearsome hunter spoil the element of surprise and alert every little bird and mouse for miles around?

My husband took photographs but we have yet to identify it.

Back home, there is little to report on the vulpine scene. We've seen all three lying drunk with slumber, any warm day. Over the last week in the cooler weather, Halftail has been seen less and Roisin a lot more. Hmm, the annual reshuffle in fox family dynamics!

An example occurred last night: we were taking an evening stroll around the park and admiring a stunning sunset. We paused on seeing a young fox coming towards us, but it didn't hesitate: it stopped only fifteen feet away and looked at us enquiringly. If we'd been carrying anything tasty with a strong smell, I'm sure it would have begged from our hands! We hadn't any treats, so Cub pootled around, pawing for insects etc. and then wandered off into the woods.

That's one adolescent almost ready to leave home, but is being very tame really safe? Lots of us love the foxes, but some people hate them. Nature must take its course.

Amazing orchids

2008-06-27T18:44:00.026+01:00

They are the most fascinating, the sexiest flowers in the world. Lovely, pouting prima donnas with very special requirements.

Four species of orchids grow on a small patch of grassland right here in my parish. All four are in flower right now.

They are: Common spotted orchid,(dactylorhiza fuchsii)

Bee orchid, (ophrys apifera)

Pyramidal orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis)

and Twayblade (Listera ovata)

This patch of land is part of the grounds surrounding the Catholic church and National School in Mount Merrion. It is carefully maintained by wild-life conscious citizens. Every year in late June an Orchid Walk is held to share with the general public the extraordinary beauty and diversity of limestone grassland: this one little plot surviving in the midst of a suburban wasteland of ryegrass and ornamentals and noxious weeds.

Species-diverse grassland is one of the most colourful and beautiful of all our ecosystems.
Self-heal, bird's-foot trefoil, oxeye daisy, knapweed, white and red clover, hawkweeds, fairy flax, - the list goes on. My heart lifts up when I spot a patch of it. Long may it last!

Bird dogs

2008-06-25T23:34:00.011+01:00

Nice summer afternoon, today about half past four. Halftail slumped on the neighbour's lawn, quite near the house, much closer than usual to me and my binocs. In front of her, a cocky magpie, stalking up and down, jerking its chin up, challenging. Halftail watches, alert but not on standby: it is as though she waits to see what this conceited creature will do next. I watched this show for a while, but I've seen it before and I was very tired and sleepy. I went off for a much-needed nap, just like any sensible fox would do.

An hour late, Halftail had fallen back to a favourite perch on top of a pile of grass-clippings, - a young haystack, really; must be warm and soft. Over on our side the garden, two magpies jerked and chattered, apparently showing each other insect places around a flower planter.

I've often watched magpies interacting with foxes. It's ten years ago now since we began to see foxes regularly in our own and neighbouring gardens, and the very first summer was when I saw magpies mobbing a fox. It was about seven o clock on a June morning and my attention had been caught by the fierce Gattling-gun chatter. Looking out, I saw the dog fox pursued by a crowd of magpies: more sat on branches of trees nearby, making loud noise; the ringleaders fluttered above him as he walked down towards the breeding earth. Every now and again, a braver young buck would flutter down and aim a peck at the tail end. Really, you'd think they had heard of the expression "a kick up the arse".

Mr Fox was a bit annoyed and rattled, so to speak, but not on the run: he did get out of the way pretty smartly, probably by going underground.

Later that summer, I managed to peep behind the shed and saw many magpie feathers, aming many others. We had seen cubs play with feathers - they love toys! And I had seen foxes, on two occasions, aim a swipe at a bird, one even jumping high with outstretched paws like a cat. They never had a hope, of course.

One of my sons saw a fox walking down our suburban street on the footpath, one evening in broad daylight: a dead magpie carried in it's jaws as it jumped the front gate and onto a party wall, and so into the Martins back garden, presumably to feed the cubs. I'm guessing that that's where the feathers come from: roadkill!

So the strutting show-off magpies might have saved their posturing. A fox won't really catch a healthy magpie, but it won't turn down a dead one. Halftail wasn't scared!

CSI Offaly

2008-06-07T22:31:00.006+01:00

Nothing much to say on the suburban fox scene...we see them all the time, snoozing peacefully in the fine weather. Every night one of them will check the feeding station in my garden, finding something about every second night. At times we hear noises of yelping and scrabbling - maybe those cubs do come out at night, if they exist...(pout!)

We had some different nature study last weekend, down in the country.

you may recall that I got some replacement frogspawn from a bucket that had been left outside the cottage. (That batch of spawn, too, is all gone)

Well, the bucket had been left in situ, and now become all green and slimy. So I went to empty it out as we were cutting grass and tidying up, etc. It smelt quite rank and rotten. I poured it into a basin and was a bit shocked when the body of a dead mouse poured over the rim. Poor little thing, I thought, fell in headfirst and couldn't climb out! I tossed the tiny body far away into the shrubbery and carried on. Oh, no! Another one! Just went to get a drink, I suppose, and two drownings! Musing on the tragedy, I continued and now what's this? Skeletal bones? The unmistakeably hand-like outline was quickly followed by the pale and swollen body of a dead frog.

No wonder the water smelt rotten. Bucket of Death, indeed!

Yet, what had caused this carnage? I didn't think that frogs could drown. Or that they couldn't jump out of a bucket in which they had spawned. Here at home, our frog seems to live underwater in the pond for much of the time, stirring it up in agitation if we disturb it too much. (Well, it floats at water level, fixing us with a beady eye.)

And the mice: Why would they climb up a steep slope and dive headfirst into a bucket, when there is a stream a few yards away and a canal a few yards more? with sloping banks and grass to grip, etc?

It all got cleaned up anyway, but I am sobered by the contemplation of that slaughterhouse of slime!

Better be careful next winter to leave nothing out except maybe a shallow pan with sloping sides.

Where are they?

2008-05-24T19:06:00.002+01:00

Just chatting with Mary Martin last week, we were exchanging remarks with the gardeners who are still working at the next house over, a large corner site. Someone mentioned the foxes, and one of the gardeners piped up: "And there are cubs as well! We saw them last week, didn't we, Jim?" And the other chap described how they had heard sounds like dogs whimpering one morning about half-eleven, and had propped a ladder against the wall to look over, and had seen maybe six cubs! And Mary herself chimed in, that she had seen cubs too, five or six of them.

So where are they? I've set my clock for 5.30 a.m. just to look for cubs, and seen none. We've all stared out upstairs windows and over walls, and seen none.

Even as I write, all three adult foxes are sprawled in blissful sleep on the lawn next door, soaking up the sunshine in a row like some Riviera beach. There's nothing to suggest that the family has "moved house", as foxes are sometimes wont to do, moving a litter to a new location.

Last night I did think I heard a little chattering at the bottom of the garden. I'd love to see them, though.

Hasty Update

2008-05-16T19:48:00.005+01:00

Was away last weekend and had a busy week, so I haven't kept this up to date with the latest.

Anyway, all three adult foxes are now regularly seen. All three look well, and they have been seen several times sprawled out in a neat row like sucking piglets, soaking up the sun in Martin's Riviera! Hers is a very large, secluded, walled, overgrown, south-and-west-facing garden.

The one I call Roisin has grown a bit. The official informations claim that foxes reach adult height in their first year, but I really disagree on the basis of many years' observations. We have often seen a smallish fox in the springtime - often, as in this case, an ancillary female - and as the year goes on, this yearling fills out and acquires an adult strength and build, and a little height and breadth.

Roisin is now an exceedingly handsome vixen, amber coloured, pure white cheeks, and a lovely white snowball tail tag.

It has been beautiful hot weather: in London last weekend, it was burn-your-arm scalding. Our foxes look peaceful and healthy. I'm still feeding them, of course, and adding mange drops to the food.

Until next time!

revenants

2008-05-04T23:48:00.004+01:00

It has been a beautiful, sunny day in Dublin. Growth is lush in garden and park and the barbecue season has begun.

If there's one thing foxes love, it's a sunny spot for a snooze, and so it was today. A brown bundle could be seen beside the yellow privet, and I took it to be Halftail. Great was my surprise, and pleasure, to observe, when it got up and walked off, my old friend Ragtip! He strolled away towards the den area, and what's this? behind the spot where he had lain, another fox still lay, curled up in a cosy heap. After a few minutes, this one also got up, and it still wasn't Halftail, but a smallish, coppery fox with a perfect tail, round white tag.

Well, well, well! Ragtip and Roisin, still on the territory, and both headed for the den area! Our three adult foxes still on the job!

I'm amused at the coincidence (after yesterday's report) and delighted to see them.

Teasing Teasels

2008-05-03T11:46:00.003+01:00

Don't bother planting teasels in your garden. Some books reccomend this for attracting goldfinches, who are said to enjoy the seeds. I have never seen a singkle goldfinch, or any other bird, on any teasel. Even the option of spraying the seedheads gold for Christmas soon palls, they are very prickly. They spread like wildfire and their only wildlife benefit is the little pool of rainwater that forms at the bases of the leaves. Because of their biennial habit, new rosettes of prickly leaves are always popping up. They are a snare and a delusion, don't bother with teasels.

Wild Garden

2008-05-03T10:45:00.010+01:00

First, some good news from our country estate: we found frogspawn there, in an old bucket full of stagnant green water. Took a jamjar-full, and have put this into our two little sinks here at the home station. Now crossing our fingers!
And continuing the theme: this morning, mooching moodily around the garden, missing my cigarettes, I heard a splashing and there was a large frog in the terrace pond! As big as my closed fist, and healthy looking, not bleached or blackened or reddened. He or she hovered at the water surface, opening and shutting little eyes, while a few bubbles rose to the surface. Do frogs fart?

While I watched, I muttered: Be careful! Two dead frogs found in this garden since the spring began! Get under a leaf and stay still when foxes are about! And then, interrupting the reverie, a large queen wasp emerged from the weeds and I beat a hasty retreat; (I have a strong wasp allergy, potentially very dangerous)
She flew gracefully around the water, sometimes swooping, but did not stoop to drink as I have sometimes seen wasps do.

Perhaps this large lady was acting as a bodyguard to the frog! I just hope she does not pick a nesting site too close to us.

Back upstairs to housework and happened to look out, and what do you think? There was Halftail, alert, in Martin's back garden, scratching as usual. The tail is no worse, at least, and the general condition of fur looks better. Had a good look at her. The bib is really very dark, mottled grey and black. Even the fur on her back is very dark, and she is a large, stocky animal, (as foxes go).

Ragtip, her presumptive mate, hasn't been seen for ages. But Halftail cannot be the smallish, orange-furred one that I regularly put up as it sleeps on the ground near Jackson's shed. Probably the presumed auntie, Roisin, but some of these ascriptions are necessarily tentative! Roisin could be a male, the father, possibly.

If there were any cubs under that shed, we would expect to start seeing them around now; but we must set our alarm clock to wake very early!

Our own garden shed now has almost a young tunnel leading under it.

Things are happening in the garden, but not before our eyes, or to our timetable. Life teaches humility, does it not?

holding pattern

2008-04-28T23:42:00.004+01:00

I haven't posted anything new lately because there hasn't been much to see. During last week's fine weather I spotted Halftail several times sleeping curled up on my neighbour's lawn, in a sunny spot, as foxes love to do. I also saw her crouch to mark with urine and droppings. It is still possible to find a fox almost any day by quietly leaning over the back wall into Jacksons: and there has been considerable digging-out under our shed.

Gloomiest news is that the frogspawn is absolutely all gone from the pond. I'm sorry now that I didn't put netting over it, but the birds love to bathe and drink...it's hard to know what's best.

We gaze out at dusk and early morning for good fox sightings, hoping for cubs, but there has been nothing. The year advances and the evenings lengthen, summer will soon be here!

Ban blood sports

2008-04-22T18:15:00.002+01:00

Just a quick link to an organisation that is committed to protecting foxes, as well as other animals, from barbaric practices that are not sporting at all!
I'll post the proper link later.
http://www.banbloodsports.com/

watching

2008-04-10T10:50:00.005+01:00

Over the last week, several times we have seen foxes asleep next door: but just a coiled-up heap of fur, so nothing much to be learned!
Last night, I put food out about 8 o'clock: and by 8.15 Halftail was sliding up the garden to feed, taking it a little way out of sight, then returning for more. I'm glad it's her getting it, because it was well sprinkled with mange drops.

Regular readers will remember how last year I was puzzled by the make-up of a fox family group that were seen here often that Autumn. Yesterday I heard from a friend that a relation of hers in this area has video footage of cubs playing last summer, very close to here. I'd love to see this as it should cast some light on the roles of Tipless, Pointer at al.

This morning at breakfast time, a fox passed through my garden but couldn't see which one. A little later, going down to deposit stuff in compost heap, I noticed a flash of bronze fur in Jackson's: peering over the wall, a smallish fox rose to its feet and moved slowly out of sight.

They certainly are staying very close to the area - there must be cubs!

Sighting

2008-04-03T12:35:00.004+01:00

Yesterday afternoon, Ragtip snoozing on M's lawn. I went down garden and looked across the wall between us. He lifted head and stared coolly back at me, from about 50 feet away, then slowly got up and walked off. I was sorry for disturbing him but justified, as I was tossing in some ends of cake dosed with medicine!

I had a look in older posts from last year to try and see if any of these foxes were on a 2nd year with us. Very hard to say, except that last Autumn's king-of-the-ring, Tipless, is certainly not among those present.

Ragtip may very well be the stocky male that we called Broadhead, has that chunky build, and the tail-tag is now just more ragged and tattered.

Neither of the other foxes matches the descriptions from last year;

Watching TV

2008-04-03T12:16:00.007+01:00

New programme on RTE on Tuesday evening - "Living the Wildlife" with Colin Stafford Johnson. The very first animal featured, in the very first episode, was the fox! Just on the edge of Dublin city!

Beautiful photography and some remarkable footage of a tame fox begging for food, and even nosing into Colin's camper van!

The footage of parent foxes with cubs was absolutely classic, just as we have seen them here dozens of times.

I felt pleased to hear even a "proper wildlife expert" admit, like me, that it is extremely difficult to sex a fox by eye alone. And to note the careful, attentive parenting that adults give cubs.

Here is the web address and you can watch the episode by clicking on "watch this episode" in the page.

http://www.rte.ie/tv/livingthewildlife/episode1.html

I'm really looking forward to seeing this programme every Tuesday!

Captured on camera

2008-04-01T12:21:00.004+01:00

PHOTOGRAPHERS IN ACTION!

Thanks very much to Fee who snapped a fox with her camera-phone; not just any old fox either but one of our group, asleep on a shed roof in a garden which I can clearly see is the one across my back wall which I have called Jackson's in these annals.
Until a few years ago, that was a quiet garden, with a little shed in the corner, which is still there. Now however there is also a swing-cum-climbing-frame, little trikes and the squeals of children at play! What sang-froid that fox was showing, to sleep on the shed roof in broad daylight and to breed very close by!

Unfortunately the resolution of the photo is not sharp enough to reproduce here, and in any case the location is quite clearly identifiable and the occupants might not care for that.

On Monday evening my husband got out his big camera and managed to catch one shot showing both foxes together. it is worth mentioning here that although they were sleeping near each other, then waking one by one, yawning, stretching etc. we did not see these two interact or communicate directly.

Yet some fox couples are very affectionate. I think it was last year that a couple went on billing and cooing and sleeping together for months. Of course they didn't have cubs, so they had more time to spend together!

Will try to post that photo anyway, if we can get the blogger thing to do it.

Mr and Mrs?

2008-04-01T10:45:00.010+01:00

Yesterday, late afternoon. I had been watching Halftail in the afternoon, scratching and trying to rest. So scratchy did it look that I ran to supply some bread and honey well sprinkled with mange drops, and containing homoeopathic pills as well.
By half-past six there were two foxes sleeping about 10 feet apart.
One was Halftail, and I had a good stare trying to verify sex. Little to see but there is a lot of fluffed-up, tufty fur around the base of tail, (from all the scratching no doubt) so I could have been mistaken in thinking it was male. No genitalia and no nipples to be seen; but I'm starting to think female.
The other was equally hard to spot; except for tail-tag which was not a nice white half-moon but a pointed,scraggy end. Sleeping near the vixen in March is strongly suggestive of a dog fox. So, who's the little one with the pretty tail? The aunties are often rather shy and retiring.
Sometimes I don't get the relationships in a fox family group sorted out at all!
For now, though, I'm going to assume Halftail, vixen, probably mother: Ragtip, the dad, perhaps formerly Bigboy tho' tail seems wrong. And lastly, Roisin, from her deep red colour and modest size.
Now I must go back and compare these with last year's foxes to see who survived the winter.

Roaming in the Gloaming

2008-03-30T09:52:00.009+01:00

Yesterday evening, at sunset, very dim. Delighted to see Half-tail scrabbling and gnawing next door. Not glad about the mange, of course, just the fox!
Things have been eerily quiet lately. In previous years we learned to expect a very low profile at this time of year, it's cubbing time.
I cautiously opened bedroom window and did not spook it off. Poor fox, so itchy! I have been dosing mange medicine in the nightly food but it hasn't begun to work. Reason for anxiety is, the dens become infested with mange mites and the cubs catch it and eventually pass it on.
In the deep dusk, a fox is expertly camouflaged on dried-out brownish grass. Half-tail scrabbled about and came and went a little and then mooched away down the near path towards the old den area, in the corner backing on to our garden shed!
I continued to watch with my trusty binocs in hand, because i could hear rustlings in the bushes, and scuffling, and alarm calls from blackbirds.
When foxes first became numerous around here, about 10 years ago, magpies would alarm loudly, but they don't anymore. Some birds still do, but it's more usually a cat that sets them off. I was hoping that it was not a case of tiny new cubs and prowling cat, a dangerous mixture.
Glad that Half-tail had seemed to be going home, I was surprised by what happened next. A second fox appeared on MY side of the wall, moving rapidly up the garden towards me. A babysitter going off duty, or an intruder seen off? hard to say, because in the almost-dark I couldn't ID reliably, except for a smooth round tail with rounded white tag. Seemed a bit smaller than I remember Bigboy, though hard to say at teat angle.
Straight up the garden, small detour to feeding-dish(empty) and to the terrace pond. I watched from above, barely fifteen feet away! Fox paused as if to drink then wriggled iunder the rose-bush to the other side of pond, just where the frogspawn is!
Then quickly down the garden again, clearing minor obstacles with a beautiful easy leap.
Vanished, then reappeared in Martins. Quick check in front of their kitchen window - she feeds them too- then swiftly out the front along the well-known foxes' passage, and out of sight.
All this is absolutely classic fox behaviour! My guess is that there are cubs, that they are in the old den area, very secluded. That Half-tail is the mother snatching a few rare moments off duty and the other one - Bigboy?- is the male who keeps a watchful eye nearby, and forages for the vixen and himself. The businesslike patrol of borders and feeding-sites was spot-on. And so is the recent radio-silence in the garden.
If the second fox tonight was not Bigboy, it could be a related female, often found in fox groups doing just what this one was -babysitting and foraging.
Now we need to keep a close but very discreet look, and supply plenty of mange medicine.

Later on Sunday morning: In the interests of completeness, I checked the pond. Well, what do you think? Was the precious spawn gone? No, indeed! In fact, there is a new clump floating in the middle!
So, foxy was looking not for spawn but for frogs! Grrr!

Watching and wondering

2008-03-24T00:03:00.006Z

Last Thursday: I'm planting potatoes in a corner of the garden, trying a method I have used in the school garden: planting in old car tyres. (It does work!)
I found a curiously shaped object lying on the steps. On closer inspection, it turned out to be the dried-out, swollen body of a dead frog. The head was missing and there was a faint fishy smell.

I remember that two years ago I found a dead frog in the garden at about the same time of year, but don't know why. That time, it was lying on the path beside the clothes-line and I was consumed with horror at the thought that I might have stepped on it. After all the troulble I've gone to, to introduce frogs over the years.
This years casualty - did a fox get it? a cat? How long ago? the little flippers were dried, black and crackly.

Anyway, I'm sad for the dead frog but glad that they managed to breed at least twice.
Good Friday. Half-tail spotted in Martins. I strained my eyes to try and get a definite sex, but the creature was being as coy as a Disney heroine. Now it lay down, facing away, scratching. Then stood up, turned around, crouched facing me...but just behind a clump of dandelions. Then moved to a new pose, spreading out to groom belly...with a slender tree screening the mid-section!

I watched for about a quarter of an hour with binoculars, but it was modesty itself. I had to laugh!

More seriously, two foxes are using that garden regularly this week. Are they a couple? Some screaming at night as usual.

Where the wild things are

2008-03-17T00:12:00.006Z

Morning stroll around the garden. What's this? More frogspawn! A nice new clump of tiny globules at the edge.

So they're still at it! Hmmm, what's this? Oh no, mess under the sole of my shoe. Looks familiar, too. Big Boy has been here, still suffering from his tummy upset. Only four feet from the little pond, get away from that spawn, you brute!

A blackbird is splashing and spraying in the other pond.

I called my husband to get some photographs, perhaps to use in next year's Spring issue.
"I love it when the wild creatures really use the garden" he remarked as we returned to the kitchen. Yes, I do too.
Beannachtai na Feile Padraig!

New tenant?

2008-03-14T19:46:00.006Z

Thursday morning, 13th. About half past eight in the morning. Big Boy again. This time I had the binocs on him (or possibly her, still not conclusive) and was able to watch as s/he crouched on M's upper lawn to extrude a veritable mound of steaming faeces. Softer and paler than normal, I hope our foxes aren't catching tummy upsets!

Action continues in the pond as well: my husband was taking photographs of pondweed for a wildlife magazine and reported splashing and bubbles! The frogspawn is srill there, though I know foxes do eat it. Perhaps they haven't yet found the spawn, though they certainly polish off the dinner-leavings that are their nightly portion.

We have heard barking and shrieking on several nights lately. I do wonder if any of the foxes we have seen are pregnant females. None has looked pregnant or lactating, but this is just the right time of year for having cubs. I did check Big Boy by eye for any signs of being Big Girl, but it's notoriously hard to tell, and I should know!
Often the clearest sign you'll get is the silhouette of a row of active nipples. It's still possible, so fingers crossed!

More Foxwatching

2008-03-10T19:55:00.006Z

Last saturday evening, as I returned home from a neighbour's house, a fox dashed out of the garden just across the road and hurried into Martin's front gate. I presume onto her garden wall and along it into her back garden, a traditional route.
Couldn't ID in the dark but glad to see continuing action.

Then today, this afternoon at about 4 o'clock, saw one in Martin's garden that I hadn't seen before: a large, stocky, deep amber-red fox, very handsome, maybe a two-year-old. It sprayed in the lower lawn, walked up to the big conifer, rubbed bum on ground, and went out of sight. I wouldn't mind betting there's a good breeding earth behind that big tree where I know there are some outhouses.

This lad had some white high on face near eyes. Neat bib, a bit speckled with black. Feet all equally black to elbows, with dirty white parts. Tail long and luxuriant with scraggy white tuft. The usual slightly mangy patches on flanks which he scratched and gnawed at. Pretty sure it's a male, thought I saw the tackle as he raised his tail.

Name; Big Boy. This is getting interesting!

Something New at last

2008-03-03T12:28:00.013Z

But it's not foxes. It's frogspawn, hurray!

It was on Tuesday, the 3rd of March, exactly four weeks after the last entry: pottering around the garden in the morning, I had a look in the little garden ponds (old Belfast sinks) and what do you think? In the terrace one, dark and very cold, a clump of frogspawn!

Am absurdly delighted, thrilled skinny in fact. This means that the foxes did not manage to catch and eat my carefully-tended frogs last Autumn.

Because you will recall, gentle reader, that one of my early posts described watching a fox juggle a small dangly object like a cat playing with a mouse. Exactly like, in fact. And I haven't seen a trace of any frog in the garden from that day to this.

That was Tuesday morning and I was very pleased. Just imagine my delight, that same afternoon, to see a fox in the next-door garden! Scratching under a tree in the lower lawn.

I couldn't tell if this was one I'd seen before: here's the best description I can manage (he didn't stay long)

Face: white in curve around nose area but not very high on cheeks.
Chest: plenty of grey and black blotching scattered over bib.
Legs: black to elbow only, on all 4 legs.
Sex: I think male, from a bare glimpse as he walked away: not sure
Tail: most distinctive, sadly: the outer half is bald from mange. It's a half-bootlace tail.
Name: Halftail?

Now I must get busier in the garden. That fox must be treated for mange with some homeopathic stuff I get from Derbyshire Fox Rescue, see link to their website below.

I've used this before and it seems to work. Ah, I've spent many hours researching foxes and mange! Must do a long post about it one of these days...
Secondly, if foxes are about again, I had better protect the frogspawn with a bit of netting or similar, because foxes eat spawn.
But if I do that, it may obstruct the pond from the at-least-two frogs that must be still around and using it for breeding...maybe wait a while.

Well, well! Lots to think about and plan. What a good, springlike, day!

MORE, two days later.

Thursday morning. I can hardly believe this myself. On my usual after-breakfast mooch, I checked the two little ponds of course: The main one full of cress as usual and now I look into the terrace one and what do I see? or hear rather: splashing! and fluttering!
Of course I approached to have a look and could clearly see a frog's foot, turning over, now a frog's head...what is going on?
I may have gone too close because the half-head I could see froze, and glared, then vanished from sight underwater. Foolishly perhaps, I pulled away a spray of ivy overhanging that corner - because really it had looked as if the frog was struggling to get out - anyway no more was seen.
Could this have been the famous frogs in amplexus? Really it was so kind of tangled up that I couldn't see for sure, but it was certainly moving in an unusual posture, and splashing. And I think there is some new spawn; it looked smaller, beside the previous clump.

Wow, not only have the frogs survived but I almost saw them mating!
And there may be a new fox!
I had been moping a little because of trying to give up cigarettes. But now I'm cheered up no end!

Signs of Spring

2008-02-10T23:29:00.001Z

Ash Wednesday, and I was not having a very good day. First to the osteopath, left a bit more mobile but very tender. Then to the dentist, discover a recent tooth casualty cannot be saved. Then got boxed in a parking space in front of Blackrock Town Hall. (Never park there!) Home with my dear, supportive husband, groggy and emotional.

Getting ready for a well-deserved nap, looked out at window, and saw a fox! About 3 o'clock in the afternoon, a pleasant dry day. Out it walked from Martins overgrown corner and crossed the lawn. I only had a chance to register a big white snowball of a tail tip on a stocky, biggish fox, and stamp my foot and call "Fox!" to summon my husband from downstairs. Alas, fox did not pause but walked away out of sight down to the old den corner.

Couldn't tell the sex, or if it was the same one I spotted last week crossing the road late one evening by the laneway. (Tail tip looks right, though) Some time later, glancing out again, I saw it passing back along the fox-path, now completely overgrown so I could barely see, but I know the signs.

There has been an increase of night noises, yikkering and yelping, sometimes sounding like two voices: and the food left out reliably vanishes. All this is encouraging, but I don't see any of the affectionate company-keeping that we saw in other years between mated couples. And there have been many fine warm afternoons when you'd be likely to find sunbathing foxes having their afternoon snooze, and especially if the vixen is pregnant as she usually is at this time.

Wednesday's visitor had not so much the air of a landlord, as of a local sussing out possible boltholes. But it was my first daytime sighting for a long time and it lifted my sad spirits wonderfully. We may see cubs yet.

Just three screams

2008-01-29T21:01:00.000Z

Last night I was lying wakeful and heard a fox's scream, then some high-pitched yelping. Then a triple scream, like a triple bark but very yelpy.
I looked out window, nothing to see. Sigh.
If I was a fox I wouldn't den in any of the surrounding gardens because of the noise and drilling. Big sigh. I hope we don't have another year without cubs!

Slim Pickings

2008-01-26T22:27:00.000Z

Landscape gardeners and builders have been busy at a neighbours house. In the garden just two houses away a large concrete outbuilding was being demolished last week and the air echoed with drilling as barrowloads of rubble were trundled out to a huge skip. Large bushes and small trees were piled on too.

Foxes must have used that garden because it is the next one after my next-door-neighbour: but they made themselves very scarce while the disturbance went on. Once we heard a loud screaming at night, but saw nothing. Just tonight, about 10 o'clock, a fox ran across our path as we drove in, just the other end of this road. It was quite short-legged, plenty of white on front legs, and a big white snowball of a tail tip. I did not recognise this individual animal.

At least something or someone is still eating the occasional dinner leftovers that I put out at night. Last night's offering was bits and ends of raw offal, liver and kidney, from making the haggis for Burns Night celebrations. A nice feast for a wild dog!

The building work seems to be over for the moment so maybe we will see some action one of these days.

A little night music.

2008-01-08T08:47:00.000Z

I guess things are hotting up on the mating scene. About five nights ago we were woken up by a fox's scream about 5 a.m. I ran to the window but could only see a neighbour's motion-sensor lights coming on. Nothing very unusual about any of that.

Two nights later, one of my sons was woken by screaming and scuffling. Fox courtship seems to include a lot of chasing, I've seen them race pell-mell through bushes and around streets. Never could figure out who was chasing who, or why. Pursuing a coy female? seeing off a rival?

Lastly, night before last, my husband heard "yikkering", a sort of clicking or tapping noise that foxes make. It's more typically a cubs, or talking-to-cubs, sound, but you can hear it any time. There are no cubs yet of course, this is mating season. If the vixen gets pregnant now, she will give birth in the spring, say late March or April.

So there, our nights are musical with foxes again after the long silence.

Dog Days in December

2007-12-28T16:50:00.001Z

Things have been very quiet on the fox front...while correspondingly lively on the domestic front. I have been too busy baking and shopping to spend much time watching back gardens. But we usually don't see much action in December. This month I saw a fox by daylight only once. Mid-afternoon, about the 15th, a tight coil of amber fur under my neighbour's "palm" tree.

I was surprised to see it, because that is a favouirite spot for summer sunbathing, but on the day in question the weather was very cold. I would have thought it would be warmer underground. Anyway it never moved so I could not make any ID.

That night, and again several nights later, I heard the distinctive triple barking of a fox. Actually, the "triple" is the most distinctive part - otherwise it just sounds like a dog barking but in a slightly gruffer voice. Think of a wuff-wuff-wuff uttered hoarsely, repeated several times.

Several times, too, we have heard a ruction of protest from magpies, the furious chattering they used to greet foxes with. Nothing to see, and they do the same to cats, so not much help there.

Even though they have been careful to stay out of sight, this is peak mating season for foxes. If they mate around New Year, they will have cubs around St Patrick's Day (typical time-frame) and we may see baby foxes at last in late April.

Sometimes courtship is noisy - one may hear screaming or snarling: or one may see furious chases through bushes and gardens. I hope some of our local foxes are doing the necessary, even though they are quiet about it!

Another sighting

2007-11-25T09:02:00.000Z

This was on Friday afternoon, the 23rd November. Just saw one next door in the early afternoon, gazing up at my neighbour's kitchen window. I know she watches them too.
I grabbed for binoculars but it wandered away behind her house so I didn't get a good look. I have really rotten eyesight so can never see well without binoculars. Thus, I can't be sure if it was Notch, the new one from last Tuesday, or even Chubby, (who may turn out to be the same as Notch!).
I'm glad to still see them, they raise my spirits. Other years, we went for months seeing none at this time of year.

New Fox!

2007-11-25T08:44:00.000Z

Things have been quiet on the foxwatching front...and then a sighting last Tuesday. About 4.15 in the afternoon, a fine mild day after the end of the wet weather. I glanced into Martin's as I was tidying upstairs and saw a large handsome fox sitting and grooming on the lawn.
I have definitely never seen this one before! The white edges of the face were wide and very white, with a distinctive 'point' going into the cheeks. Front legs black to the knee, back legs black on feet only. The tail - had a separated double tip with a ragged bit of white showing and a large patch of dark fur on the underside near the base. (Perhaps he had been in a scrap, or his grooming wasn't very expert!)
Anyway, he squatted on the grass for a long pee, quite a stream. Then he sat and rubbed his bottom along the ground, always a very graceless performance. (Years ago, we had a cat that did this when she was constipated: we used to call it "doing the Lambeth Walk")
The fox was clearly scent marking the garden, very abundantly. He was certainly a male, by the way, I had a crystal clear look at the fixings as he raised his tail.
He went away and I went on working. About 20 minutes later I looked out again and was astonished to see a fox in my own garden. By now, it was almost dusk on a dull November evening and I couldn't be sure if it was the same one! But this one went all around: the frog-pond, the Rowan, the gap in the hedge. Hmmm. Frustrating that I could hardly see his tawny fur in the dusk. But I could see that it was stocky. Too much rich food from humans? You don't often see a fat fox!
Well, well. Where are the former residents of this territory? The new guy seems very possessive. We'll see what happens!

The Scattering

2007-11-17T10:20:00.000Z

It's been a month since I posted and in all that time I've only seen two brief glimpses of my foxes out the back. One was about 18 days ago, on a fine afternoon, (a perfect fox day), just a bundle which I couldn't identify. S/he soon went away, too cool these days for outdoor sleeping.
The other sighting was just yesterday; about 9 o clock in the morning. As I went down the garden with my cup of coffee I heard a scuffling of footsteps and spotted orange fur making a getaway across the back wall into Jackson's. Could have been a marmalade cat but cats usually stand their ground, and there isn't a ginger one in the neighbourhood anyway. I think a fox.
I've had just one sighting out in the street, one evening after dark: Tipless furtively sliding through a hedge onto the footpath. His thick, blunt tail with no trace of white is very distinctive. yet what a contrast, this Tipless who was so brazen and relaxed in my neighbour's garden only a month ago.

It is a very different story out in the wider streets. We still do see plenty of foxes as we drive at night-around eleven seems a favourite hour-but we see far more dead bodies on the motorway.

All summer, the young cubs born last spring have been getting bigger and braver. Many litters are still together. Winter is approaching and the stronger animals will be claiming territories and mating soon. The young ones must disperse to find homes of their own.

What happens to these young foxes? I'm afraid that a goodly percentage of them - at least a quarter, maybe even half - don't make it past their first dual carriageway. They may well survive the quiet suburban streets in the dead of night -but there are a lot of foxes there and stiff competition for the best breeding earths, sleepover spots and food supplies.

Down on the N11 and on the motorway, there's carnage. I can't help noticing, as I drive, how many of the pathetic bodies are young ones who never even finished one year on Earth.
I am, however, realistic: without this ruthless annual weeding-out, numbers would rapidly soar. Then there would be the consequence of overcrowding: the spread of horrible, destructive mange. And foxes fighting each other, and householders laying poison.

In the meantime, what of the young wanderers? They will need to be astute, and brave, and lucky. Wow, there's natural selection in action! The ones who make it across the dual carriageways and motorways will have to find a territory which is either vacant or which they can occupy by brute force (males) or blandishment (females).
Young dog foxes will exhibit the signs of adolescence found in all mammalian males: a hostile attitude and a readiness to square up to the dominant male. They may be able to wrest a patch from an older male by fighting. Meanwhile, the resident males who have a good piece of turf are standing by ready to repel intruders.

The ladies have the same challenges but may handle them differently because they have different options. (But let's not be too anthropomorphic: both sexes travel and hunt and fight and seduce)

All of them are looking for mates, except perhaps the stay-at-home sisters. The males, having won a patch of turf, want a vixen to share it with. The vixens do the same but some may just find a willing male already available and walk into a good home. Vixens, and dogs, who are staying on, will have to fight off invasion by the young and hungry of both sexes.

Small wonder that the fox world becomes so cagey at this time of year: we know they are there but they are as wary and cautious as the gangs of an American city and keep their heads well down: when they must hunt or patrol borders, they do it with an almost supernatural stealth, slipping silently from shadow to shadow.

And the daytime sightings that are a joy of summer are gone for the next few months!

October

2007-10-17T16:24:00.001+01:00

I'm back from a fortnight's holiday and fully expecting the Autumn Vanish, as we call it. Normally sightings at this time of year are few and far between, as young foxes disperse to find territories and mates for themselves. The seniors may be left on the home turf but they will have to fight for it against ambitious immigrants. And there is a mortality rate, from traffic accidents mainly, as young or old foxes travel afield. And it's often a wet or windy season; and if there's one thing foxes detest, it's rain!
So I was pleasantly surprised to see, on a fine sunny afternoon last week, (11 Oct) the familiar two mounds of amber fur curled up in Mary's garden. Couldn't see which ones, but later saw Broadhead stretching comfortably. How they do love a sunny spot.

Today's sighting was even better. (17 Oct)

The spell of fine, dry weather continues, a nice change after the wet cold summer we endured this year.

About 3 in the afternoon, I glanced out my bedroom window and saw a thickly-furred fox arrive on a favourite sunbathing spot, look around leisurely, and lie down in a comfortable coil. The fur is healthy and it gets thicker as the weather cools, so I wasn't sure at first but thought it was Broadhead. I eagerly snatched up my binocs, and confirmed that it was him, looking very well. Evidently the good feeding has gone down a treat. Then as I admired him, there was a small flurry in the big macrocarpa tree, (at the back, an area I've never seen them use,) and out crawled, one sleepy leg at a time, Tipless, unmistakeably. He yawned and shifted, then sat down.

The behaviour of the first fox was interesting - he immediately got up and trotted away down the garden path towards the "den area" - a hidden corner where cubs have been raised in other years. Neither fox made any greeting or acknowledgement of the other, and no hostility was shown; but Broadhead left the premises without delay, though also without undignified haste.
I think this illustrates the changing dynamics in a fox family group very neatly.

No, I haven't forgotten that I promised to pursue the topic of fox diet: next was to be birds: I'll see to it next time!

Sauce for the Goose

2007-09-17T18:10:00.000+01:00

The fox is one of the most adaptable animals. You can find the Arctic fox in the far North and the Fennec fox in the hot desert. They're found all over Europe and the Americas. A species couldn't be as successful as this unless it was very adaptable.
Foxes are opportunistic feeders and can live on almost anything. The conventional childish picture book always shows Mr. Fox (or Brer Fox) pouncing on a rabbit or stalking the farmer's fowls. And there is no doubt that these are very good eating for a wandering red dog; meaty, tasty and just the right size for catching. However, that's in the countryside. Nowadays, you are more likely to see a fox in a Dublin suburb than in a rural area. So what are town foxes living on?
Here follows a list, in no particular order, of what our foxes eat.
1. Insects. Over the years, I've noticed that cubs in particular seem to eat a lot of insects. Maybe they are less skilled at hunting for themselves, or sometimes they are left unsupervised just mooching around the garden, waiting for Mam or Dad or Auntie to bring home some real bacon.
In any event, a fox looking for insects looks remarkably like a sheep grazing: head down, turn over tuft of grass at edge of path, nibble, move on a little...they get more experienced as the summer passes: they know to turn over flowerpots and stones for woodlice underneath. And they don't have to be cubs to do this: any of our adult foxes, sunbathing in a warm spot, will snatch and catch and swallow a passing moth. For them, though, I guess it's a snack; for cubs, more of a hungry stopgap or emergency rations.
Next, birds: see the next blog entry.

evolution of a colony

2007-09-13T21:40:00.000+01:00

This year's foxes have puzzled us since we first saw them together. In previous years we first saw cubs above ground in early summer, like 27th April (2003) or 8th May (2004). Of course we always watch and listen eagerly for signs of a new fox family, though this year there had been little to suggest it. We were resigning ourselves to another summer without cubs like last year. And then this bunch showed up.
Earlier this year I had been logging sightings of two foxes, regularly seen, sometimes together. One was skinny and pale and was named "Bootlace" from the tail, which was hairless with mange. This is a common look with mangy foxes. I squinted and peered but never got a definite look to sex it, but thought female. However no nipples visible, and they usually are in a recently delivered vixen. The other one was certainly male, of stocky build and large wide head. I called him "Broadhead" and I think he is still with us. Broadhead and Bootlace behaved very like a mated pair but we never saw a cub with them. Surely it could not be a second year of sterile mating? Cubs could be elsewhere of course.
And then, on the 31st of May, we see three foxes in the garden, next door.
*I should perhaps explain at this stage that virtually all of the sightings here recorded are in the back garden of our next-door-neighbour, Mary Martin. We get a ringside view from our bedroom window. Now read on:*
The three were; Broadhead, as before, with his grey bib and white blob of a tail-tip. Tipless, who seems to be the same fox as we saw last August, 2006, already adult then; he has no tail tip, grey bib, bright amber coat, 2 small patches of mange on haunches; and finally, one with a whiter bib and a pointed narrow tail-tip, posibly female, possibly adolescent. She (or he) is Pointer.
The puzzling thing is, this was the end of May, and none of these was a cub of this years batch except maybe Pointer. yet they are clearly a fox family group and have been seen greeting with the classic double-gape, and grooming each other.
The possibilities are;
Broadhead is the father, the mother was Bootlace, now dead of mange, Pointer the only cub to survive. Tipless would be an uncle? Not usual. Related foxes do help to rear orphaned cubs but that would normally be low-ranking, unmated females.
Maybe all three are sibs? Pointer the sister of Broadhead, helping to rear his family after death (presumed) of Bootlace? They certainly act like sibs, sometimes "getting up a game" by pawing the ground and crouching, just like domestic dogs who want you to throw a ball for them. But the two males are too grown-up to be this year's litter and they wouldn't be still together after a year, not two males, I think. I could be wrong about that.
Anyway, Nature is now taking it's usual course; Tipless spends a lot of time in Martin's, sleeping the day through on the lawn, under a tree, even on the footpath today. A second fox is also seen, just a brown patch and a pair of ears in a corner. Tipless is strong and experienced, and he is claiming this turf.

Naming names

2007-09-10T18:07:00.001+01:00

Tipless is so called because he has no white tip visible at the end of his tail. The brush in question is a fine, rotund, black-over-tan appendage and it has a blunt rather than a pointed end. I am told that every fox's tail has a white tip, but if so, you would have to catch Tipless unconscious to look for perhaps two or three white hairs at the very tip.
I have always used the tail-tip as a means of identifying the foxes. These animals are not easy to recognise, especially moving fast or at a distance, or, as we most commonly see them, slumped in a sleepy pile. They are particularly difficult to sex, unless they adopt a pose that allows a glimpse of the undercarriage. That old phrase "a big dog fox" doesn't hold water: we've seen large vixens and small males.
So mostly I name them from what I can see. The tail-tip is good because it varies a bit, from pointy to blunt, large or small, narrow or wide or shaped in some way. The bib area on the chest can be dark or white, deep or narrow etc. The feet always have a bit of black but it varies also; we once watched a cub we called "inkyfoot" because he seemed to have been dipped in treacle right up all four legs. There is also coat colour, a little shading or marking, and any scars or limp etc.
All that said, it is still quite tricky to identify them even if one knows them well; a pair of binoculars by every window is a great help. Over the last decade or so we have watched at least twenty foxes from our window; now I am running out of names!

playing with prey

2007-09-09T08:45:00.000+01:00

This morning, about a quarter to eight, I looked into the garden from my kitchen window and was thrilled to see one of the foxes on the lawn. Up to know we have mostly had to watch them from an upstairs window. But about two months ago our dear old family dog had to be put down. Foxes used to just ocasionally flit through after dark, and the dog would whine and yelp in the house. If we let her out, the fox would vanish like an arrow. She was a darling dog, a Lolly, and I still miss her sadly.
Lately however the foxes from next door have been cautiously colonising this space, since we now have neither dog nor cat. And of course I have been feeding them, ironically on raw meaty bones that were got for the dog and were still in the freezer.
So I was delighted to see Tipless this morning. He was nuzzling something on the short grass beside the Frogway. Then he tossed it into the air and caught it again. Then he dropped it and prodded with a paw. I ran for binoculars to see what he had, hoping it was a mouse but worried for my frogs. Annoyingly I couldn't see well, just a smallish dangly dark object which Tipless played with exactly - but just exactly - the way a cat plays with a mouse. He flung it a yard in the air from his mouth and as it landed, pounced with two paws. Then he tried burying it behind a tuft of long grass.
This is something I have often seen them do, hiding food. In fact sometimes I come across a little hollow with a bit of earth on top which often contains a dead worm. On this occasion he sort of abandoned the game and went mooching about our rockery as if looking for something - either insects or hidden food. Found something because he munched and licked a bit. Went out of sight under the windowledge, then reappeared.
Back to the long grass and retrieved his toy. Seemed to wonder if it was dead (I hope it was!), tossed it about. Every now and again he would try to munch on it and drop it with an air of dislike. Hmmm, if it had been a mouse he'd probably have eaten it.
Anyway I began to knock and gesture at the window and Tipless simply sat down and watched me. I took my coffee-cup and went out. Even as I came out of the side-passage entrance he was still on the lawn and only trotted away as I came down the steps. I tried looking for the prey where Tipless had been but could not find it. Eaten? Tossed into darkest corner? Wrong spot?
It's nice to see the foxes occupying my garden at last but I must try harder to protect the frogs. Can't win against Nature!

What This Blog is About

2007-07-08T23:16:00.001+01:00

I have spent several years observing successive families of foxes in my own, and my neighbours, suburban back gardens. I hope to share my observation, so far preserved in a paper log, on this blog.