The weather was miserable today. A typical spring Bank Holiday Monday: windy and wet. It's been like this for most of the weekend. Good for the garden, but terrible for everything else.
I took the opportunity today to update my blog layout using some of the new designs from the My Opera team. The updated templates provide slightly wider space for the main blog (good for images), and have a generally improved feel to areas such as photo albums and sidebars. And with customization you can adjust various elements.
The basic template I'm using here is Blue #2, which isn't entirely obvious since I've modified the top bar to make it black, added an image (this time from some recent photos of the younger of the two male foxes). I've also tweaked the background to make it plain black rather than the default stripes (matches my other site) and reduced the default font which was slightly too large for my taste (thanks to Ayush for the help over on the forums). I may play around with other areas, but probably won't add the new 'shout-box' feature.
I also spent some time over the weekend sorting out an index page for the photo galleries on my web site, including an rss feed for that page so that you can watch for updates. The feed also displays in the side bar here (last entry).
There is some fox news. Saturday was quite warm, and the young male fox passed through several times in the afternoon, and again late into the evening.
4.18pm
5.55pm
11.40pm
And last night (well early hours of this morning), there were some very loud screeches coming from somewhere nearby at about 2.30am. It definitely sounded likes cubs were in the vicinity, but as previously no actual sighting.
I'm going to close this entry with two links to photos from Saturday. If you don't like insects, don't click the first link. It's an ugly looking fly of some description, blowing a bubble! The second link is a blue damsel fly.
Ramunas
7 May 2007Looks great 🙂
Dudley
7 May 2007Looking good :up:
Flying Red Fox Blog
8 May 2007Nice cool blog layout, well done:D
sprogger
8 May 2007I like your new look.
Words
8 May 2007Thanks! But I'm now really kicking myself for not taking a screen grab of the old version, or of the version I had before that.
ALLY_G
8 May 2007Let's not talk about the weather, because here the same: rain, rain, heavy rain. :yuck: No chance to go out with the camera. 🙁
But the right time for a new blog layout! Yeah, that really looks great. :up:
Don't be worry for your missing screen shot. Try something new. Maybe it will be nicer than before.
anonymous
9 May 2007Zachary writes:
Hi Words, nice design, I like the white-on-black. I have a question about the fox. Are all of his paw pads white?
Words
9 May 2007Hi Zachary,
His pads are grey/black… slightly dusty in colour. Take a look:
anonymous
9 May 2007Zachary writes:
Thanks Words, a nice photo. The rear pads look white (in the 5.55 pm photo above). By the way, congratulations on having your footage on that fox documentary. I caught it on youtube last night.
Words
9 May 2007Zachary, now I see what you mean. The paw in the 5.55 photo is the same as the others, but the sunlight is catching on the hair around the foot, so it looks white. I've cropped it a bit so you can see.
Well spotted on the documentary. There's all of 27 seconds of my footage, between 1.21 and 1.48 of the first You Tube clip 😉
anonymous
10 May 2007Zachary writes:
I see now: the hair around the pads is white/blond. Even in your crop above of the front pads, the hair is a lighter color. Do you suppose this hair is genetically light-colored, or that the melanin fails to develop because these hairs are always under pressure..?
Words
10 May 2007Oh gosh, I really couldn't say. I have no scientific background at all, but it's a really interesting idea. Maybe Adele will be able to help out on this one. I'd love to know the answer.
anonymous
11 May 2007Zachary writes:
Amidst the torrent of phots that will probably herald her return, I hope to remember to ask her 😉
SittingFox
11 May 2007I heard my name? 😉
It's a very interesting question but one I cannot claim to answer categorically – but I would have thought that it was down to genetics, as otherwise species like blackfooted cats would have white hairs there also.
Incidentally the Old Dogfox has white claws. You can just about see them here.
Right, back to sorting out the torrent of photos… 😀
anonymous
11 May 2007Zachary writes:
Thanks Adele; I had a hunch it was genetic, since the light-colored fur had a tendency to be around the pad areas which also do not receive the weight of the fox body. But it's interesting that they have localized around the pads from genetics alone. (In the middle of the paw, which is also facing downward, I see the fur remains the normal orange body color.)