Beautiful redhead...

I have a half acre patch of woods that starts about 30 ft behind my house. The patch of woods is essentially a small canyon with a spring fed creek in the middle. There are several small cave openings in the hillside just across the creekbed. It’s a really peaceful place, and it is home to some endangered native flowers. In the winter, it stays a few degrees warmer than most areas and in summer a few degrees cooler because of all the 60 degree air that rolls out of the cave constantly. There are salamanders, skinks, lots of birds, a bumper crop of squirrels, and now there is a beautiful redhead living in the cave. She’s an older gal from what I can tell through binoculars and she is quite large. She has clearly lived around humans a lot as she knows to be aware but not worried with cars moving and stuff going on, she seems to understand that she is perfectly safe in my small patch of woods. I hope she has a litter of babies this year, and I hope she stays around. Maybe she can thin out the rabbits and squirrels. I will try to get better photos of her. She seems content to stay put with me at around 40-50 yards. I tried to get a better photo this morning but the good camera was dead... so all I got was crappy cell phone pics.

She has been out and about more today. Seems odd to be out and about during the day, but it seems like she is a bit protective of the cave entrances. I hope that means that she has pups in the cave. I got some better pictures, but I don’t have a way to pull them off of the memory card until I get back to my laptop on Monday. Now i need to get the neighbors to leave her alone. Some want to walk a bit close to her cave without realizing what they are doing. They ran her out into the field today and she acted like she wanted to lure them away. As soon as they left she came back on a mission to get into the cave. Her behavior really makes me think she either has pups there already, or has decided that she wants to use that cave to raise the pups she is about to have.

She is the first red fox I have seen on this property. Before her I had seen a couple different gray foxes.

The endangered plant species (I never can remember its name, it’s a wierd name) bloomed today. I got pictures when it’s at its prettiest. I know that the plant family is pretty common, but the variety and color is the part that is rare. It pretty well covers the steepest part of my property.

Bless her heart!!! Momma fox has a litter of 6! They have finally came out of the cave and started playing. They look to be about a month or so old, maybe a bit more. This field is adjacent to my woods. The sinkhole is clearly connected to my caves as it is only about 30 yards away. They have been sunbathing, playing, fighting, and what seems like it may be daddy fox apparently took down a neighborhood cat. I still need to get a trail camera out but I’m afraid to get too close to the den and there aren’t any good spots up near my house. There are good spots on the other side of the creek but it’s too steep to get to them without coming right through the den area. The pics are terrible on here... sorry.

The fox family continues to grow and they seem to be healthy for now. They are getting their eviction notice though. I hate to do it, but 2 adult foxes and 6 babies is taking a toll on the neighbors cats, chickens, etc. the general concensus for everybody else in the neighborhood aside from me and my next door neighbor is that the momma fox needs shot. I’m trying to prevent that, and have put in a call to the TWRA in hopes that they will come and trap the whole family and relocate them to a less urban area. I’m also concerned that people are trying to poison them as we have come across a couple chicken legs that have obviously been left to be found. I have had to take one away from each of my dogs.

22250Rem said:

Thread revival time - Remembered this thread the other day when I saw a fox leap from the edge of the woods at some birds on the ground beneath our bird feeder, (he didn't get any), and hung around for 20 seconds or so. Which was long enough for me to grab the Canon Rebel and get a few telephoto shots of him before he vanished into the snowy woods.View attachment 977510....View attachment 977512... This is a rough time of year for foxes, or just about any critter. In winter I rarely see them except on night time trail cam pictures.

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Ours we call Opie. We think it’s a male and the name came from the Andy Griffith Show. We see him a lot, and have some great photos of him but my wife lost the card reader for her MacBook and we don’t have a good way to move pics off of the camera to a usable place. In fact he is out sunning himself right now but I suspect he will be in his cave in a bit. It’s starting to get nasty out and he will go in.