Tuesday, July 08, 2014

I FINALLY SHOT MY ELUSIVE FOX!

NO, NOT WITH A GUN… geez. Really. And it is not a great shot as it is out the kitchen window which was washed a year or 3 ago… hey, you wanna come wash windows here? I will show you where the ladder is and hand you the Windex  and a roll of paper towels. Have at it! Anyway, the point of this post is, several people have heard about the gray fox family that lives in our woods, somewhere between Frank’s and my properties… and many of you have said you have never seen a gray fox. Well, we have had them living here ever since I have lived here, and I must admit I did not know what it was the first time I saw it either OR the first time I heard it bark!

See him in front of the mower barn right next to a peony, in front of the trash cans? Compost pile is to the left of him… that is where he is headed.

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Gray foxes are good tree climbers, but not great jumpers. I can usually tell when one is prowling around, generally checking the compost pile. Spook jumps up on the shed then the mower barn roof and keeps an eye out from up there. Safe decision.

 

I found a video that has the sound of these foxes… it is very distinctive, and can scare the crap out of you when this starts out under your bedroom window in the middle of the night!  OK, truth… it scares me anytime I hear it, just because it is so unearthly and loud. I have heard it for years yet it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Picture and sounds are from http://retrieverman.net/2012/03/27/gray-fox-screeching-and-barking/

4 comments:

Caddie said...

Ah, lucky you, living among nature's wild, surrounded by the city's savages. Your pictures make me feel you are safely enclosed and closed off from the daily bustle of the forced survival mode. It wouldn't surprise me to one day seeing a fresh cut bale of hay in a corner of your pleasant haven of naturalness. You lucky You!

If the god of Thunder would only make up its mind, possibly I too would reign happily within my own little "Nature Hidey-Hole".

Ten drops! Our inept weather announcer promised heavy and dark clouds; only they were suddenly smoothed away once again by rosy rays. My poor plants - calculating the cost of the few yellowed cucumbers this season makes me tremble in defeat.

Tossing Pebbles in the Stream said...

Lovely wee fox.

Harriet said...

We have red foxes here, though not as much as we did a few years ago. (They have eaten all the feral kittens.)

I don't think I ever heard them bark. We also have coyotes, which can be frightened away by noise.

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

Yes, I was able to make out the grey fox heading to the compost pile. I would have preferred to be indoors too dirty windows notwithstanding.