The sun can only spin a fox fast, stripping off the winter coat and lengthening the limbs and ears. Where the climate is permanently like this grinding summer, foxes are small, pale and lean, their bodies preoccupied with diverting heat away from core organs. In the cool far north, foxes are thickset and large to keep that heat inside.
But the core essence of fox-ness alway survives the sun’s remodelling. The keen eyes, long muzzle, chin beset with whiskers – it is the need to outwit prey, to navigate relationships with other foxes, to explore the land itself that makes those.
All the same, wildlife stares through hot air, no doubt tasting smoke.
There have been no significant local burns so far, but the charred smell of the New Forest reached us on Monday – a dark reminder of what happens when a spark and heathland meet. The whole country now needs the rain promised for next week to fall.
Meanwhile, nature is spun by the sun while still being in thrall to other forces. This robin is growing up into adult feathers, a passenger of time’s progress even if the seasons seem too slow.
We are all watching. We want the land to be painted green again.
A Walk with Wildlife 
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