Foxes tonight

 

So far my posts on this wildlife garden blog have been general background, and I have a few more of those planned. But here is an up-to-date item of the sort I hope to get onto later, when things start to move in the spring. But nature won’t wait.

 

Tonight at about 9.30pm I happened to notice that something had switched on the safety light at the back of the house. You know the sort of thing – to deter intruders. I guessed there might be a fox, so I cautiously raised a blind. There was a fine big fox. But then out of the shadows came another, smaller. I was enjoying watching them snuffling at the pond, which is surely frozen, when there emerged from a corner a third, of the smaller size. My guess is that it was a mother and two younger ones. Then the light went out.

 

Urban foxes are common round here – and in many places. Their determined burrowing, and tendency to leave droppings scattered about can make them a nuisance. Their biggest nuisance value in our garden is their appetite for any fruit that happens to be within reach. One took pears off the lower branches a couple of summers ago.

This summer they stripped almost all the plums off our little tree, even breaking down some branches (the tree is very young and growing) in the process.

I am also fairly certain it was a fox that pulled a plant out of the pond, pot and all (I had not yet got round to planting it), presumably searching for grubs. 

About a mile away, on the edge of some woodland, badgers occasionally come into gardens. I would be thrilled to see one, but I think they could be seriously destructive of a town garden if in the mood. I'll settle for foxes. I'll see in the morning if they have made their presence felt.