January Foxes

I’ve been very neglectful of the blog in recent months and while I can’t promise to post as regularly as in the past, I will try to keep things ticking over. So in that context, here’s a short update of January. And that means foxes.

The winter months can sometimes be quiet, but this year three of the regular foxes have continued to stay around through the winter months. This is unusual as in most years the younger foxes have been driven off in autumn. At the moment though there are two younger foxes still around, plus Wolfy the adult vixen. There’s also a large dog fox who shows up occasionally, but I’ve only sighted him on the trail cam. He’s big, but he’s shy.

These two are last season’s youngsters. The one with the short brush is the bolder of the pair and therefore gets photographed more frequently. The other fox tends to sit at the back of the garden when I’m out there, minding his own business until I retreat to the house. Neither are nearly as confident as Wolfy, their mother, who ventures all over the garden and will quite happily tolerate me.

But it’s not just been foxes. The mild winter has produced some earthstar fungi in a secluded corner of the garden. These are lovely little sproutings that open out into a puffball with fleshy wings forming a star around the centre. We have a little clump of them that appeared seemingly from nowhere!

The sky also offers great photo opportunities. This is the moon taken on a cloudy night. I shot it as a thin layer of cloud was passing in front of it, which allowed me to boost the shadows without burning out the moon itself. The colours embedded in the night sky are surprisingly varied. I’ve slightly boosted them in processing to create this image.

I’ve also spent a little bit of time photographing local birds but I’ll save those shots for another post. Meanwhile here’s a couple more photos of the foxes.

That’s all for the moment, but I’ll try not to leave it as long until the next post.