Foxes in the snow

  • By Alison
  • 12 February, 2012
  • Comments Off on Foxes in the snow

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This is Legs. He is one of a mating pair whose territory includes our neighbours yards and our shed. He and his girlfriend – Foxy Lady – spend their days sleeping in the sunshine on our shed roof or up against the fences of the yards I can see from my window.

He’s called Legs because he’s lame in one leg. And I think he’s a “he” from the presumption that if Foxy Lady is a “she” then Legs must be male. And I know Foxy Lady is a girl because she wees like one. That’s about as scientific as I get with my fox gender recognition! Of course, they could also be gay foxes.

Legs is just the tiniest big less red in the fur than Foxy Lady. But he’s a lot braver, and I’ve been able to sneak closer with my camera to him than to her. Mostly I set the camera up in the bedroom on a large tripod. I’m hoping that the neighbours over the back realise what I’m doing, otherwise I can probably look forward to a knock on the door from the peeping tom squad pretty soon.

fox in the snow

Foxy Lady, Legs, Steve, and Fox Number 4 are the four inhabitants of my fox viewing point. I’ve not seen Steve in some time, and it’s possible that Fox Number 4 is really just Legs in disguise, since I’ve not seen them in the same place at the same time. It’s pretty difficult to know for sure which fox you’re seeing at any one point in time, since the fur colouring difference is only really obvious when they are together.

I can’t know for sure, but I think that Foxy Lady and Legs were the kitten sized fox pups who were left parentless when last year’s mating pair were killed on Croydon Road at the same time. There were three tiny cubs, and two older juveniles at that time, and that family seemed to stay together and look after each other without the parents.

I could be completely wrong, but I like to imagine these healthy foxes are those tiny little cubs all grown up!

View other photos of the fox in the snow on Flickr: Snow on my birthday and of both Foxy Lady and Legs in Foxy Lady and Legs and then some that include Steve and the mythical Fox Number 4 in The Foxes

Categories: photoblog

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