24 January 2016

Fox watch

Not long after moving my laptop to the table under the window in the studio (to get the benefit of the heat from the radiator under the table), earlier in the week, I lifted my eyes to the outside world and had one of those heart-stopping moments as two foxes dashed along the wall - at 11.30 am.
Quick, get the ipad, turn it on - caught them! 

Not long afterwards they returned, first making themselves at home in the downstairs neighbour's rather neglected garden -
 then moving next door, where things are rather tidier -
where they looked perfectly at home -

Then along came a third fox, investigating the windfalls next door -
 taking one over the fence to downstairs garden, presumably eating it, then going back for another.
She(?) didn't interact with the others, and didn't stay long.

And the others disappeared not long after -
They look fully grown and it could be a male following a female - winter is the mating season. Half the fox population in London is around a year old, and foxes rarely live beyond five years, though in captivity they live up to 14, comparable to dogs.

Foxes are omnivorous - about 8% of the diet of foxes in London is fruit, and they eat rats and pigeons too. More fox facts are at thefoxwebsite.net, and elsewhere.

1 comment:

irene macwilliam said...

As they say, ... a whole new world out there. Question is how much are you missing when your head is down while you work on the computer. The answer is to do no work on the computer and observe! Then if you are like me you will fall asleep from doing nothing and so miss it all anyway..... a no win situation. How do I know. Like you I work with at a window table with radiator to keep me warm.