Tag Archives: fox

Buzzards at Falmer and Treating Pretty

Plenty more rain today. I took to the local woods at lunchtime in the hope of catching sight of a buzzard. I sheltered under the trees for a while, but without any luck. As the drizzle eased a little I headed to the neighbouring field, and saw this.

buzzard

While I was watching the intensity of the rain increased, but things were only just starting to get interesting. The buzzard flew across to some fence posts and I tracked it with the camera. There was a second buzzard, engaging in a mild dispute with a crow.

buzzards and crow

The crow won that encounter, but the second buzzard was less easily put off and settled down adjacent to the corvid.

Common buzzard

The rain got heavier. I waited. The buzzard gave in first and headed to the woods for some shelter.

buzzard in flight

buzzard in flight

buzzard in woodland

I lost track of it after that, and I too needed to find some shelter as the rain intensified. Still, a really nice local encounter and well worth the soaking.

Meanwhile I’ve been becoming more concerned about Pretty. She’s been scratching a lot (foxes do, of course), but some of the smaller breaks in her coat have become larger and I do suspect she may be suffering from early stages of mange. Apart from that she seems well enough, and tonight we’ve started her on a course of treatment. She’ll receive four weekly treatments, which should do the trick. Here she is checking out the first dose.

Fox being treated for mange

I’ll keep you updated on her progress.

As a final note I’ve disabled the auto-email notifications from the site for the time-being as one of the accounts used here seems to have been spoofed as a spam address. I’ll attempt to send notifications manually, but if you have subscribed do check your spam trap. If you are not already subscribed you can do so via the contact form linked in the header. See also the note in the side bar.

Camera note: all buzzard photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. the fox being treated for mange taken with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM.

Posted in Bird of Prey, Foxes, mange Also tagged , |

Two Badgers and Fox (video)

It was too good to last. The dry spell is over and it’s been raining solidly for several hours now. The week ahead looks mixed, which may be ok.

As for tonight’s blog, the title relates to the video which will come up in a moment. It features a badger making two trips into the garden during heavy rain (this was on Friday, I think). It’s limping heavily, which if nothing else shows that it’s not only foxes that suffer from minor leg injuries. The second badger clearly isn’t limping, and looks altogether leaner than the first one. The fox in the video is (I think) Shy Boy. I’ve not seen him for a while, but he makes up the fourth of our four garden foxes: Pretty, Nicked Ear, and the one with the mange-afflicted brush are the other three.

First though a couple of photos of Pretty. The first was taken in the early hours of Sunday morning when it was dry. The second just a few minutes ago in the rain.

Fox in garden

Fox in garden

Now the video.

Camera note: both photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens.

Posted in Badger, Foxes Also tagged |

Fox Photo

Just one picture from today… also available at my Fox of the Day page.

Fox in garden

And I might as well re-post yesterday’s ‘fox of the day’ since it contains a glimpse (the eye-shine) of a second fox lurking at the back of the garden.

Fox sitting in garden with eye-shine from second fox in rear

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF70-300mm 4.5-5.6 DO IS lens.

Posted in Foxes