I may not have been posting much, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working hard to get to know the dominant garden fox. Over the past week he seems to have reached the conclusion that I cannot leap 9.5 metres in the blink of an eye. Slowly the distances have been coming down. The pattern is the same. I have to start at least 10 metres away, but he now lets me approach closer. Tonight we got the distance down to a respectable 4 metres. Hence the opportunity to get some proper portrait shots, such as these.

Portrait of an urban fox at night

Portait of an urban fox at night

Those have both been slightly cropped, but not much. The big gain though is that by getting in closer (5 metres) the eye-shine caused by the flash is much less apparent… and with a slight downward angle disappears altogether. From 9 metres away the eyes light up like headlamps. At mid-range (7 metres) the eye-shine is apparent in the original shot, but sufficiently controlled to make minor touch-up in PhotoShop straightforward (the equivalent of removing red-eye, except that in foxes the ‘red’ is ‘blue’).

Fox peering round a shrub (from about 7-8 metres).

Fox walking across the patio, from the same distance but with head lowered.

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM lens.

That’s the limit (9.5m) of how close the dog fox will allow me to approach. We’ve been playing this game of distances for several weeks now and it seems to be remarkably fixed. Where he has become more tolerant is that he’ll let me get that close even when food isn’t in the immediate vicinity. I’m still some very long way from being able to pose him where I would like (I have managed that with other foxes), but I am now achieving photos other than ones of him tucking in. Here’s a selection from the past week.

This is the standard shot… easy to get but not very interesting

Ok, he is ‘tucking in’ in this one, but at least it’s a different position.

This is becoming a favourite challenge….

The fox hides behind a bush and teases with intermittent glances through the branches

If I’m lucky…. he steps forward

Walking in the open

But most of the time this is all I can see…

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D Mark II and EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM lens.