A Walk with Wildlife

Hello all. Dusting off my login details but spring’s run ahead of me, and suddenly night is more of a mark on the clock than something that properly darkens the skies. The sun lingers late and jumps up early. I was outside at half four this morning, and the hedges rang with sparrow chirps.

They were not alone.

The Breakfast

In the heart of the valley she waited, as tense as a wire about to snap. Ears plotting a map by sound, brush held ready for its task of counterbalance.

She sprang, and caught something, probably a vole. She not entirely eating for herself; when she turned round, it was clear that she was still lactating.

The Respite

I did not walk many more yards before spying her mate.

He sat on a footpath. Not watching me at a safe distance, like sitting foxes often do. Not having a scratch. He had seemingly just halted his morning there, in the middle of some journey now locked beyond our reach inside his memories.

The Debate

I climbed out of the valley, and past a border written in fox scents and habits – I entered, unknown to me, the neighbouring territory. A young male fox trotted straight and clean, early sun running its rays through his ginger fur.

But it is not only foxes who write paths on the land. Fallow deer too have their circuits, and today their eyes collided. The fox paused, staring at deer which were staring at him.

Not for long; his journey was seemingly irresistable.

One deer offered a half-hearted mock charge. The relationship between foxes and fallow has some reason to be tense. Despite the common claim that British deer have no wild predators left, foxes can and do take very young fawns, sometimes in significant numbers. But adult deer like these are only on the menu if the fox finds them as carrion.

The Guardian

The rumpus tailed off, and my eye was caught by another fox – a large fox by the further hedge. When I trained my camera there, I saw that this fox was not alone.

The next generation, learning what it means to be vulpine, what it requires to navigate the world.