Urban Foxes

I have much love for the fox. But then I am not a keen gardener, nor do I keep chickens.

There weren't any when I was a kid and my first urban fox encounters were in Bristol, where there's loads (the BBC's Foxwatch was filmed there after all). I see them round my way in Oxford, but only very late at night or very early in the morning.

this surprises me, as I thought foxes tended to come off worse when they clashed with cats.

Having said that, I came face to face with one the other night walking back through Barnes Common to my house. We stared each other out for a bit, I made to move, so did he, a bit more staring. Then I walked off, throughly pleased. That was nice.

There is a large family of them living in the undergrowth at my parents' house. I like watching them sun themselves on the lawn.

You're only jealous!

http://www.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGPORTRAITS/music/portrait200/drp000/p043/p04345gg1sr.jpg

I have seen others, though not looking so twee.

A bit like me actually.

also, deer, which have been seen wandering near some of the more remote dorms on campus here.

Animals that I have seen in DC include deer, opossums, raccoons, and while I was coming home from work late one night, a cat that had the intelligence to wait for my car to stop at the stop sign and use the crosswalk.

[1] Illegal firearms, while very common in DC, are mostly used on other humans.

The closest I've been to a fox - and a rural one, too - was when I was on a camping holiday as a teenager. I sneaked off into some woods to *cough* get to know myself better *cough*, and was fully occupied when I heard something in the undergrowth. I turned round, and saw a fox stalking something, only about six feet away. He didn't see me until I moved a foot slightly; when he heard the rustle, he turned, saw me, and scarpered.

Even better was a black fox that lived along the Lee Gulch trail in Littleton. When I first saw it I thought it was a dog, but as I got closer I realized that it was a fox. Very cool.

Foxes are kind of fascinating to me, their posture is sorta feline.

Had an interesting encounter with one about a year ago. Was cycling home in the dark when I saw a sizeable lump lying across the cycle lane right next to quite a busy bus stop. I slowed down and saw it was a fox and I could see it was still breathing, so I jumped off my bike to have a look at it. It didn't look great, so I turned to the bus queue - there must have been about 10 people there - and asked if someone would help me move it out of the road. I sort of had visions of the poor thing being pulped by the Number 25 when it turned up. Anyhow, they all totally blanked me apart from one bloke who told me he'd seen it get chased out of the park by a dog and run into the road where it got hit. Then everyone just kind of shuffled away from me like it wasn't really dying there in front of them.

Not really knowing what to do, I bent down to take a closer look. The fox looked pretty stunned and scared, so shielded it from the heavy traffic with my bike - not wanting it to get up and run back into the cars. I was a bit fearful of handling it and the sight of all the blood dribbling from it's mouth didn't really help, but then I just thought fuck it, got someone to watch my bike, picked the poor thing up and carried it back across 5 lanes of traffic and put it down under a bush. At which point it got back up on it's feet and wondered off into the night.

Nick B is a good guy. One day a fox may even save HIS life.

http://animals.timduru.org/dirlist/fox/redfox_Snow_BeautifulCuteFoxie.jpg

Get me a horse and some hounds, and we shall sort this nonsense out!

Yeah, but that's just part of their charm....

Apparently they make such a racket when they're at it because the foxy willy has little backward-facing hooks on it that make sure they stay coupled long enough to ensure conception. And you can imagine what that feels like for the lady fox. Hence the yowling.

Supposedly fox-hunting made little difference to actual fox population in the countryside. It surely wasn't that frequent and widespread in order to cause this increase in population of urban foxes anyway?

Louise from across the road warned me today about a deadly fox in the area, when it appeared in her garden she ran at the poor bugger with a hard bristle sweeping brush. I tried to explain to her that this fox was probably in need of hydration and terrified.

They were doing their business in our front garden so I invested in one of these (invented by my late brother-in-law, incidentally):

http://www.fox-watch.co.uk/

Foxes steal newspapers! Just what are they trying to do by blocking humans' access to information?

they developed a taste for charles krauthammer's washington post columns after enjoying his appearances on fox news, the cable channel of choice for that branch of the canidae family

fox attempts to steal wallet

https://twitter.com/Hag0605/status/706969998867243008?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

There are some large and partly overgrown gardens at the back of our house and there's at least 3 foxes living in there. There are 2 we see together quite often lately so I think they probably have cubs. Just now we saw the pair of foxes in the garden behind ours right by these 2 black cats (there are loads of cats around here too) and they pretty much just ignored/weren't bothered by each other. The foxes were running around the garden, probably looking for food, while the cats just stayed in the same spot. We were a bit concerned at first when we saw the 2 foxes right next to one of the cats (didn't see the other cat at first) but the cat just stood its ground I guess.

All the foxes look a bit mangy. One of them has no fur on its tail at all. Sometimes I leave some bread out in the garden with some marmite and mange medicine on it (apparently foxes love marmite), but I was looking at the bottle and it's homeopathic so I'm a bit skeptical that it actually does anything for them. We got it from a fox protection society though. I'm also not convinced the foxes are even the ones eating it with all the seagulls around here.

i love the late night demonic howls of foxes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk1mAd77Hr4

hear this kind of thing almost every night at my parents' house

I had to jam on the brakes the other day because a fox trotted across the road in front of my car carrying something in its mouth that might well have been a young rabbit. There's at least one full family of them living in the dunes behind our housing estate.

Wish this was a thread about broads

this guy comes to visit me sometimes when i'm mucking about at my allotment...

https://image.ibb.co/iHXW85/frrfrr.jpg

that is the sweetest looking vulpine

omg are there amateur wildlife photography awards

We eat crisps together and i fill him in on the football

a+ fox, would feed crisps to

What's under the bottle-cloches?

i sow my broad beans under them - they keep the frost off in the winter / help retain moisture in drier weather / holds the slugs at bay / stops cute furry mammals from digging them up

Milennial Ygritte at the bar
Sorry Wrong life

The foxes around my way seem very thin and I'd like to feed them, but I have a very large and imperious cat who chases them out the street...

Lovely picture NickB

the sounds these guys make

this fox is just screaming outside my window rn like a banshee.

I saw a fox last week when I was walking to the post office. Prior to this the wildest animals I had seen near me (I live in a large-ish city in NJ) were rabbits (a few here and there), the odd raccoon, and groundhogs (a whole colony of them, at least 3 or 4). The fox just came jogging down the street, sniffing at people's lawns like a dog. Of course I didn't have my phone with me, or I'd have taken a picture. It was totally unafraid of me. Exciting as hell.

Last night one stood next to me outside my house for the time it took to smoke two cigs. I love them.

misread as Unban Foxes

This fox can't stop staring through Swedish couple's window

Well, it's their own fault for giving him ham on Christmas.

that’s a beauty of a fox, would feed ham to any time

There are 3 foxes in the 2 gardens to the right of mine. They all look good, no signs of mange, I guess probably the mangy foxes that lived there last year have died and these have moved in to take their place. Been watching them out the top window for a while. Not sure what they are up to - at first I assumed it was a male and a female and the third one was a rival male, it is mating season after all. But they all seem friendly with each other, and have been jumping between the 2 gardens, sometimes 2 in one and 1 in the other, but not the same pair all the time.

Fox! There's one wandering around my neighborhood today, confirmed by two neighbors. It passed me twice while I was working in the front yard, but I only caught a glimpse before I RAN IN THE HOUSE LIKE THE COWARD I AM. Just phoned the city and was told that wildlife is part of the city, and they won't do anything unless the animal's injured. "What should I do if I get home one night and find myself face-to-face with it?" "Uh...try to scare it away."

They're not dangerous, are they?

Unless it's rabid, you're in more danger from a domestic cat

Thanks--I skimmed through this thread, and that seemed to be the general feeling. If I disappear off this board, though, tell the world my story.

Is it OK if we snicker a bit as we tell it?

We've always had foxes in my neighborhood, but in the past year or so they've done particularly well. It used to be I'd just hear them in the distance if I was up in the middle of the night, but now I'll see one about every two weeks trotting home with a squirrel in its mouth if I'm out walking the dog at 7 a.m.

This has led to some hilarious posts on Facebook/Nextdoor along the lines of "just want to warn you to keep your dogs and cats inside - there's a fox in the neighborhood!" FORTUNATELY always educated by dozens of other commenters.

However, there's one person who swears up and down that they saw a coyote, which are a bit more rare around these parts and would be a good reason to lock up your dogs and cats. But a lot of the foxes have brownish coats so I'm guessing they just saw one of them.

a fox stole one of my daughter's school shoes off the front verandah one night--they'd been left out to dry after she jumped in mud etc--and ate half of it

Just saw this guy again through my window--he has apparently moved into the neighborhood.

They're all over the place in London, they're so common, and so visible, they almost don't even register as wild animals anymore.

Hate to say it, but I think what I saw this morning might have been a coyote. The one a few days ago, even though I only caught a momentary glimpse, was definitely orangey; what I saw this morning (I was inside and had a better look) looked more greyish, no orange, and wasn't a dog. It's a nice day, so, as always, people are out everywhere walking dogs and young children. I guess it's not a big deal--maybe it just goes its own way and avoids everybody.

I see loads of foxes where I live. The most startling thing I've seen in recent times is wild deers appearing in the local woods every summer. Last summer I thought the old guy who told me there was a couple of them wandering about on what is locally called the mountains (they are just big hills) that he must have been going senile, until I saw them with my own eyes.

(xp) Glad to say there are no coyotes in London! I don't know what size coyotes are but foxes are pretty small.

From their respective articles in Wikipedia:

Coyote males average 8 to 20 kg (18 to 44 lb) in weight, while females average 7 to 18 kg (15 to 40 lb), though size varies geographically. Northern subspecies, which average 18 kg (40 lb), tend to grow larger than the southern subspecies of Mexico, which average 11.5 kg (25 lb).

Red fox adult weights range from 2.2–14 kg (5–31 lb), with vixens typically weighing 15–20% less than males.

Definitely a coyote. My next-door neighbour says there have been two or three in our area as of late, caused by a nearby construction site interfering with their food supply. She has a small dog, so she's worried. I looked up this video on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB1V0YPIrSo

If it comes to that, I guess a shoe would be the nearest thing to throw--the yelling and screaming part would come easy for me. (You're talking about someone who, when I was teaching out in a portable once, got the teacher next door to come in and kill a dragonfly for me--something she was kind enough to bring up at my retirement.)

Yup. Channel your inner ape and go apeshit. Since most animals already consider us to be borderline psychotic and dangerously unbalanced, they will generally treat you like kryptonite.

They piss me off. They bark and fuck outside my bedroom window most nights, and it's a thoroughly horrible noise.

You're only jealous!

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Monday, December 29, 2003 6:18 AM (nineteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I do not deny the element of envy. But when you're having a hard enough time getting to sleep....

This is where I usually post fox pics, is it?

Alley next to our garden, a few weeks ago:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52846926408_76939e6aa7_b.jpg

what an absolute beauty

i hear coyotes yipping and yowling most nights but i have no luck nor skill as wildlife paparazzi so just envision a pack of big scruffy tan foxes high on laughing gas

something I've noticed since moving to Brighton is the lack of foxes compared to Hastings which was full of them. upthread NickB has posted about them so they obviously do exist here, but I never see any, whereas I would see them all the time in Hastings, badgers too.

https://i.postimg.cc/Pqv2QwMG/IMG-20230622-WA0001.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/sXNfdbhG/20230623-174520.jpg

The local couple had babies this year that run round the street and gardens. The above one is getting into trolling

I respect their trolling skills. There's one that just stares from the railway embankment behind out house, impassive, as my dog winds himself up yelling at him.

Our dog (very territorial, very barky, self-styled snarling bane of all foxes) apparently went out for a pee while this scene was playing out and just straight up didn't notice it was sitting there

We had a fox hanging out in our backyard for a few days, hiding under bushes and rolling in the grass. At one point he came out when the cat and I were in the yard, and he seemed more intimidated by the cat's display of aggression than by mine.