I'm trying to follow what the general pattern of movement is with the foxes, but without much success. Certainly there's a young fox which pops into a garden opposite early to mid evening most nights. It may be the one I saw at the end of our road on Christmas Day, or possibly the shy vixen out on the prowl. I'm never close enough to tell, but I did see it trot away down the road a couple of nights ago, so it may not be one of ours. As for the vixen, she seems to be using our rear garden as a thoroughfare more than anything else. I've noticed her cross the garden on several occasions, rarely pausing for more than a moment or two. She passed through again this morning (I presume going 'out'), stopping briefly to have a scratch. This was at about 11.30. The photo was taken through a window.
Late morning vixen
She returned about three hours later, entering from where she'd exited earlier. I was able to slip outside with the camera. Her curiosity was enough to cause her to pause long enough for a single shot before she disappeared through the fence.
Mid afternoon vixen
No such problems in photographing the old dog fox. He showed up early evening (17.40) and stayed for about 15 minutes (or long enough for 50+ frames). Part of the attraction was some leftovers which gave me a chance to observe his caching behaviour. And he caches everywhere.
Behind the pond
In the flower bed
In the herb bed
The only place he scent marked was the bowl the scraps were in… when it was empty. He's done this in the past, and it suggests that he marks the places where he's removed food rather than where he's stored it. :confused:
And since it cropped up in the comments recently, I'll just mention the problem of eye-shine when using flash. If you are close enough to an animal, the flash misses their eyes and you get a nice black pupil. When I'm photographing the wood mouse I'm usually so close that there's no problem at all, and none of the mouse shots has been re-touched. With the foxes, distance tends to vary rather more. Most of the shots are as they come from the camera (apart from minor sharpening and noise reduction), but occasionally I do re-touch their eyes. If the eye-shine is bad (mostly on long distance shots taken from 20-30 feet away) I rarely bother as the shine destroys most of the detail around the eye as well, but from slightly closer in it can be worth the effort. Here's an example:
The bright blue eye-shine is typical of foxes.
To eliminate it I use one of two possible techniques. It's sometimes possible to get good results with the red-eye filter on my image editing software (I just use the eye-drop tool to select the correct 'red' colour to filter). Alternatively (and I use this mostly when the eye-shine is white) I simply use a paintbrush tool set to about 3 or 5 pixels wide by 5 or 7 pixels high, and with a 50% soft edge. I explode the image to about 800% and then paint in the black pupil pixel by pixel, and if necessary add a white reflection (using a 3×3 pixel brush). Occasionally I combine both techniques. It depends very much on the evenness of the eye-shine. Here's the re-touched version of the previous photo.
Re-touched eyes
Camera note: Vixen photographed with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. The dog fox photographed with the EF 24-105 F4L IS USM and Canon 430EX flash unit.
Vulpes vulpes
31 Dec 2007Interesting. The shy vixen is so pretty! I have also come across the scent marking in the bowl by my local foxes (after they have eaten the contents!).
Words
31 Dec 2007The scent marking is quite odd. I wonder if they are laying claim to the bowl.
phiznlil
31 Dec 2007I am quite envious that you can be discussing different techniques to deal with fox eye-shine. We only see foxes very occasionally, usually a fleeting glimpse of one running for cover in the headlights. There are plenty of them but they are quite wild, like the badgers.
I suppose this is because we live in the deep countryside where these animal don't become accustomed to being seen by humans 🙁
Flying Red Fox Blog
31 Dec 2007Very nice post and the vixen looks so cute:heart: I heard another Fox like yap yapping last night although it does sound like a bunch of ladies on a night out:P
Words
31 Dec 2007Mark, yes they're very noisy at the moment. It was nice to see one in the daytime 🙂
SittingFox
31 Dec 2007You'd enjoy J. Henry's book. He showed quite convincingly that they were scent marking to remind themselves where things were not. I guess marking over a full cache would be like putting a signpost on it for all the potential thieves in the neighbourhood :bandit:
I notice the chip out of the vixen's ear. She's still a pretty fox though 😉
Words
31 Dec 2007Adele, yes I must get that book.
Well spotted with the nick in her ear. :sherlock: That's started me trawling through other photos to see if there are in fact two foxes around. The answer is yes. This is the same fox taken on 20th December and again on 26th of November. Both show the nick in the ear. However, it's definitely not the same as the 'shy fox' on the Christmas Day pictures. It's more crowded out there than I'd realized.
Words
31 Dec 2007Phil, it does seem strange that it's so much easier to see foxes in semi-urban settings. We're surrounded by fields but I've yet to see a fox anywhere other than in gardens or on pavements. You're right though about becoming accustomed to humans. Once they're here it's pretty much impossible for them to avoid humans. We used to see them in the street when we were out walking our dog. They'd just step to one side (usually through some railings) and just watch as we'd go by, before returning to whatever it was they were doing.
SittingFox
31 Dec 2007Reminds me of the Ginger Vixen, Takahe and the Fringe Vixen – they were practically clones! :faint:
anonymous
2 Jan 2008Nikki writes:
I remember reading that foxes mark food that they have eaten (empty caches, carcases with no meat that might still smell) as a sign to themselves and to other foxes that there is nothing worth going after in that spot because the food has already been eaten. I think this was in Red Fox by J. David Henry?
Happy New year btw! Thanks for the great pictures and the eye shine explanation 🙂
anonymous
24 Jun 2009Rich writes:
We have a very loud "creature" in the woods and yard behind our house at night. I chased it around with a flashlight a couple of times and was impressed with it's bright yellow eye shine. It was at night and I did not get a real good look at it but it appeared to be a bit bigger than a fox and was more brown than I axpected with some black fur on it's back. There have been reports of coyote not too many miles from here (about 10 miles west of Baltimore Md). Blue eye shine was noted on the foxes above. Could I possible be looking at a coyote?
Words
25 Jun 2009The eye-shine can vary a bit and can be yellowish in foxes (it depends on the angle and the flash does odd things). To be honest I know nothing about coyotes but if they are known to be in the area then I'm sure they'll roam a fair distance so it's possible. Foxes are quite small, so if looked at all large then it's probably not a fox!
SittingFox
25 Jun 2009Rich, coyotes do have yellowish eyeshine, and your description does tally with a coyote from your part of the world. If you see it again, look at the tail – North American foxes have thick brushes with a white tip, and coyotes have shortish tails with no tip. As Words says, foxes are quite tiny, and to be honest some female coyotes aren't much bigger, but they have longer legs and both species look much bigger than they are at a distance!