True to form, it rained on Bank Holiday Monday. That more or less put paid to any trips out. It was so overcast that by lunchtime I had yet to pick up the camera. The rain had just eased off to the finest drizzle by lunchtime, when I looked out of the back window and saw this:
It's unusual to see him approach from the rear of the garden, so I wonder whether he'd been sheltering away from his home ground through the night. The rain was heavy from the early hours until mid-morning. He was looking somewhat bedraggled, but otherwise fine. But it allowed me the luxury of taking some daytime shots (it seems so long since I've had the chance for that), and even then the overcast sky forced me to shoot at ISO 800 and with a wide open aperture. But daytime is daytime.
And being light, I had a chance to check out something that has been bugging me slightly ever since it was mentioned by Vulpes a few weeks ago: has he lost a front lower canine? Over the past weeks I've been checking photos and the evidence has been inconsistent. Today though the evidence was clear. His front left lower canine has broken off. Part of the tooth is still there, and clearly he is quite unworried by the loss. You can see it in this shot.
And cropped closer
The other great thing about daylight is that I can shoot video. I risked going back inside to grab the old Canon S2 camera (and for once I have actually been checking that it has working batteries in it). I got a couple of minutes usable footage (not easy shooting video with a camera in one hand and taking stills with a camera in the other!).
YouTube link / High Quality link
Camera note: all stills taken with the EF70-300mm 4.5-5.6 DO IS lens. Video shot with the Canon S2 IS stills camera.
zetorres
26 May 2008Great movie! :up:
Words
26 May 2008Thanks ZT!
gdare
27 May 2008Nice movie. Did he ever let you come closer than this?
Flying Red Fox Blog
27 May 2008Hes a little bit wet hehe. 😛 Hope he will be ok with the loss of the tooth, do they grow again or is it like us when we lose teeth they dont grow back?
Nice video aswell 😀
Words
27 May 2008Mark, he was looking pretty soggy! I 'm sure he'll cope with the broken tooth, and he's not shown any signs of discomfort so nothing to worry about. It won't grow back, but the others are fearsome enough. 😀
Words
27 May 2008Darko, the old dog fox isn't bothered by me at all. He will sometimes come to within a few inches (too close for the camera to focus).
Vulpes vulpes
27 May 2008Aww, poor fellow. I wonder how he did that to his tooth? Super pics + video (spoilt this week!) – he looks as handsome by day! 😀 What tasty things did he "hunt" in the flower bed? :chef:
SittingFox
27 May 2008They're always finding new ways to injure themselves, aren't they! Very nice video. He seems so certain that your garden really belongs to him 😉
I saw the stormcrow fox (otherwise known as the Scraggly Vixen – it's becoming quite a joke, how she always turns up when the weather is horrendous) over the weekend but I seem to have busted my camera battery charger, and have had the strange experience of being without a working camera for the last few days :faint:
Words
27 May 2008Vulpes, I've no idea if foxes chew on rocks, but I've known dogs that do with similar results. I now need to track back to see if I can find the last time he had a full set of chompers. May take a while! There were just a few scraps in the flower bed to tempt him to the camera.
SittingFox
27 May 2008Well, I've managed to get my Canadian charger operational (whoever knew that American-to-English plug converters were so hard to track down?! :insane:) so hopefully business as usual will resume soon…weather permitting :right: Pretty annoying though.
Words
27 May 2008Adele, he definitely rules the garden. Wet weather seems to alter their behaviour and timings. It would be fascinating to know where they go when it turns bad like that.
Sorry to hear about your charger 🙁 That must be incredibly frustrating. I use the battery grip which at a pinch can take 6x AA batteries, though I've not tried it out yet.
Words
27 May 2008Weather permitting, indeed! Glad you got it going again. :up: