random thoughts – Day 2,118 (Saturday) – fox talk

Since the first time seeing a fox in the neighborhood I’ve been on high alert. The few viewings were random and fleeting enough that I sometimes wondered if I had really seen a fox at all. A movement, a flash of a reddish bushy tail, and then not much else.

Fox on a morning walk.

This morning, while drinking coffee and reading a book while facing the living room bay window, there was movement outside. A fox crossed a yard before dashing from the far side of the street to my side, and then up Mom’s driveway and out of sight. It made me wonder what’s wrong with my driveway that the interesting critters seem to go through Mom’s more than mine. It put me on super high intensity alert for another sighting. 

Whether it was a male or a female or even a cub was not something I could tell. All I knew for sure was it had a beautiful reddish long bushy tail, a reddish coat, triangular ears, and matched every description and image of a red fox I’ve ever seen.

Fox on a rock.

Over the course of a couple hours, my windows framed a fox living what looked like one heck of a great morning. A fox ran across the snowfields of neighbors’ yards and up cleared driveways. It walked along the edge of the street. It disappeared under a tree with low bushes. It reappeared in another yard. It ran through the wooded area behind my house. Each time, I moved towards a window, cell phone in camera mode in hand, and camped out, waiting for another glimpse.

Once, for a couple minutes, one fox chased another through the other side neighbor’s yard into the wooded area behind our houses. One paused on a stump, then they both turned and ran across the yard and crossed the street again. There were few cars out and hardly anyone out waking so they had free rein in their adventure.

As the fox(es) scampered from yard to yard, I scampered from room to room trying to get pictures. Today was much more successful than past efforts. I got pictures of a fox trotting on the street, pausing at the edge of a driveway, posing on a stump in the back woods. Getting the two foxes playing together was less successful as they were in the trees and just far enough from my window and from each other to be hard to get both in a shot. Plus, they move quickly when they want to. Later, one headed to Mom's yard up the path cleared for oil delivery.

Fox headed to Mom's house.

It looked like a great day to be a fox running on the snow. I had fun watching and wondering how many sets of the tracks in the snow in my yard are from the foxes. My dashing from window to window was a test of speed and agility.