Yesterday my sister-in-law dropped in for a bit of a Friday Happy Hour. While we were sitting at the kitchen table, a fox who often drops by, came into the yard then onto the deck. I took my camera and went outside. He went back down to the yard, stood staring for a minute then laid down, as relaxed as could be.
I began softly talking to him, telling me that he'd better be a good fox and leave my kitties alone. Kenz was under the deck and thought I was talking to her. She came onto the deck and I picked her up. Fox's ears pricked up and I said that this was Kenz and he'd better be nice to her, that she was not a dinner item. I took Kenz into the house and came back outside. I snapped and snapped photos and he stood up and came back onto the deck with me standing there. My camera kept snapping.
After a while my sister-in-law came out. That frightened him a bit and he went down onto the grass. Sis-in-law suggested that if I didn't want him around I should yell or throw something at him to discourage him. She picked up the piece of pine branch that's visible behind the fox in the photo below and threw it. He ran over to it, thinking she had thrown food. He seemed to take the hint then and left, walking toward the pond.
Sis-in-law left then too, walking. She called me about ten minutes later on her cell phone to tell me that Mr. Fox had followed her up the road. Amazing but not all that unusual that this fox is so tame. I would say that someone in the neighbourhood is feeding him. He's been here many times this winter and my son saw him on the deck in February when I was in hospital for the shoulder surgery.I don't like them around so bold and so tame. I have photos from five years ago of a fox chasing Kenz. If they're hungry, a cat would make a big dinner. We're lucky to have our snow gone as it makes it possible for them to get mice quite easily. I've delighted in watching foxes pouncing and hunting mice in the long grass around the pond for many years and have lots of photos of them passing through the yard but usually if you open the door they take off. That's how it should be.
I have to say it's been a bit difficult to find 'fox music' in my files but I've come up with two. The Jimi Hendrix' classic, Foxy Lady is a given and I have Gingerman by Kim Barlow. I had music up by Jamie Fox but it has disappeared and it's not exactly in the essential category that I'm slowly replacing. By the way, we know this fox is not a lady. He peed in a tree trunk with his leg raised and if they're like cats or dogs, that means Monsieur.
2 comments:
You have foxes, we have raccoons, oppossums, and the occasional skunk. Two mornings ago as I was getting ready for my pre-dawn walk, I caught a raccooon in the light just outside the back door on the deck. He just stood there and looked at me for the longest time. I had to make opening-the-door motions for him to mosey away. Around here we're told that if a wild animal is unusually docile it may be "sick," meaning rabies, so there's always a bit of fear that creeps into one of these encounters. Raccoons are big animals and sort of creepy, the way they slither around, and I'd just as soon they stay in their invisible form. (Once an opossum died in the crawlspace under our kitchen! That was pleasant, since we weren't aware of its presence until its smell started mingling with the food smells in the kitchen. The animal control guy earned his keep that day!)
We have raccoons and skunks too, and coyotes. Luckily there was only one case of rabies on the island and it was in a raccoon in the western end of the province. There are lots of woods around here; it's just that people feed the wild critters and they start coming to houses for the easy meal rather than in the wild where they have to work for it.
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