Thurs 25th June: The dog fox, Streak, spotted trotting along the edge of the field the coal mound, and thus his den, is in. He fairly quickly melted into the hedgerow.
Fri 26th June: Wasn’t expecting to see anything on the walk, given it was overcast, drizzly and the wind was (as far as I could tell with so little) blowing our scents ahead of us, but I was wrong. We stopped at the vantage point looking across to the coal mound to shelter from a thicker burst of rain, and I soon spot a pointy, red-furred face staring out of the foliage at me. After a few moments, it moves, emerging onto an area of quite short grass, and I see it’s the vixen, carrying something. My best guess is a ragged lump of wood, but I’m nowhere near sure. She fairly soon pads out of view, towards the area of the mound I believe houses the den.
Sun 28th June: More dog walk encounters. First, one of the many swallows hunting the fields flies past within a couple of feet of me, close enough I could have reached out and touched it, and slow enough to give me a stunning view. Second, as Tigger splashes in the stream Green Lane crosses, I look out over a freshly-cut fallow field and notice not only a large number of wood pigeons startling away, but a fox staring at me. It wasn’t close enough to be sure, but I lean toward it being Streak, since when I unzipped my coat (it had been raining when we started the walk but was by then a lot sunnier) it bounded energetically away, only to stop just before the hedge and stare again, very much like the late evening encounter on 16th June. It then vanished in the time it took me to glance at Tigger. Lastly, in the late evening Tigger-pee, the usual bat appeared hunting the drive, and another passed through. Also, a large – probably a red underwing – moth was on the wall of the house.
Tue 30th June: In the Green Lane portion of the dog walk, just past the brook crossing, a roe deer startled away from – at a rough guess – thirty or so feet ahead of us. Tigger made to playfully chase, but stopped when I asked. I didn’t expect to see it again, but a little way on it startled away again, then again further on still. By this point we were close to the end of the lane and the road, which is very busy for a B-road, and I was worried we were inadvertently herding it toward trouble. Thankfully it didn’t appear again, having finally found a way through one hedge or the other. On checking my (too poor to post) photos, I realised it was a buck, with a sizeable set of antlers. That’s a male and a female seen quite soon after each other. Come the evening Tig-time not only did the usual bat appear in the orchard, but another up around the top of the ash, another was glimpsed over our neighbour’s back yard, and a possible fourth (it may also have been one of the others, relocated and moving a lot faster) zipping around another part of the garden. Warm night equals plentiful food, I guess.
Weds 1st July: On the last part of the walk, along the road to home, I found an insect on the pavement. This isn’t unusual, since I’m often rescuing bees, butterflies and caterpillars from the asphalt; this insect, however, was a stunning male banded demoiselle, much less common around here than their beautiful cousins. I picked it up by its wings – a method I use with butterflies with great success – and set it gently on the nearby hedge. It was a little dopey, but seemed to be recovering, so hopefully it survived.
Thurs 2nd July: On leaving my friend’s house a little after 10pm I crossed the road, and glanced out across the field…then stared in open-mouthed wonder. There was an actual, real, genuine badger foraging some fifty-ish feet away from me, calm and completely unphased by my incredulous gasping. With the kind of painfully double-edged luck that seems to dog me this was the one time I hadn’t brought my camera along, and my phone was useless. Then things got even crazier – from right in front of me a fox emerged, trotting casually out from the cover of the hedge. That’s when I started shaking, convinced I was dreaming; no way was this happening. Sadly I gave a slightly too loud gibbering sound of wild excitement, and the fox (most likely Streak again) turned to look at me, then bounded, in that same energetic, almost playful-looking way, to just past the still utterly uncaring brock, and stopped to look at me again. After a few more snatched and awful phone photos it trotted further and further away, vanishing beyond the curve of the field. At that point I sprinted back to my friend to tell him; he came out to look, the badger still there, casually noting it was likely the same one he’d seen in his garden in the daytime a while back. Once he left, I crossed back over the road, gawped at brock some more, then finally set off home, in a state of utter shock, the badger just carrying on foraging. Suffice it to say that was the most amazing wildlife encounter of my entire life, and I’m still shaking as I type this.
Fair to say things are getting very interesting around here right now. I’m seeing so many wonderful things, and for some reason, Streak and the vixen (I will think of a name for her eventually) are never far away. I’ve always, light-heartedly, thought of foxes as my good luck tokens; now, after so many instances of them appearing so close to another superb sighting, and especially tonight, I’m honestly starting to wonder if it might actually be true…
Foxy Musings 