Mid-October
Creswell Crags, Derbyshire. Much of Britain is hollow: where the land is limestone, rivers and rain carve out sprawling, dripping caves. Unconscious diaries of our past, caves faithfully record people, climate – and wild things. Some of the wildest, and some of the hardiest.
This is the jawbone of an English Arctic fox unearthed at Creswell.
This animal trotted through hills that did not sport moors, blanket bogs or pastures. The Arctic fox’s England – or the peninsula soon to become England – must have looked more like this.
The Arctic fox is a living thermometer. When the ice sheets crept southwards, the fox came with them. As the climate warmed, its range contracted north, and the red fox – larger, less cold-adapted – took over.
But the Pleistocene seems current news in Svalbard.
October is a black-and-white movie in Spitzbergen, largest of the Svalbard islands and home of the 25 miles of road that make up the archipelago’s entire road network. The slopes rise without apology to impossibly twisted crags that tower over loose black rocks speckling the snow like pepper. How can any fox live in such a place? No rodents, no berries; in summer they hunt seabirds, but in this season, their menu is only ptarmigan and reindeer carrion, and whatever scraps the polar bears might leave.
They blend into the landscape as if they are built from it. Hiding from the wind, watching themselves be watched. If they do not move, they are almost invisible – yet there is one in the photo below.
Arctic fox. I have waited a long time for this.
On an island far beyond reach of red foxes rests their cousin, equipped with fur that more than doubles in density during the winter, and feet pads that retain warmth through complex blood vessels. Its tiny ears are built to prevent heat leakage, and its small body size requires fewer calories. Its trick of moulting between brown summer fur and the ghostly winter garb means that it is never easy to spot.
Yet I still find it impossible to stare at these vast rocky valleys and not think it a miracle that they can eke a living.
A fox like this knew an England now written in our caves. I hope many generations of its progeny leave footsteps in Arctic snow.
A Walk with Wildlife 
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