Despite the wet, today has been a pretty good day for fox visits. Roofy appeared shortly after midday, and hung around for a while. He seems to have sustained a minor head wound, though the general dampness made it difficult to judge how bad it is. He doesn’t seem concerned about it, and his behaviour was much the same as usual. It showed up in a couple of photos.
Notice the wound on his right temple (left of photo).
Here’s another view.
He eventually returned to the earth having heard something, though my hearing is not quite fox-sharp so I couldn’t say what it was. But he suddenly became alert, listened for a moment and then hurried back through the rear of the garden.
A couple of hours later, I was inside when I saw some movement in the garden. It was a fox, but not Roofy, nor the cubs or the old dog fox. Not wishing to startle it I watched from a window, and I’m reasonably sure it’s the same mystery fox we saw in February. I was worried at the time that it might be suffering from mange and today didn’t entirely put my mind at rest, although her (I think it’s a vixen) condition certainly doesn’t seem to have deteriorated. She could be suffering from fleas, or displaying the scraggy look of a general moult. I only managed a couple of shots through the window for documentation, so excuse the poor composition. This was about the only angle I could get.
No signs today of the cubs, but Roofy was back mid evening, and I was able to see the wound rather more clearly in the night shots. It looks as though it’s healing fairly cleanly. Impossible to know what caused it, but I’ll try and keep an eye on his progress.
Mickeyjoe-Irl
29 May 2007Poor lad 🙁 but you're right, it does seem to be healing well.
As for the newcomer, the word must be out in the fox community that you're the man to see about skin problems.
Flying Red Fox Blog
29 May 2007Poor Roofy! Hope he gets better soon, must have had a fight or a fall or something. 🙁
SittingFox
29 May 2007@Mickeyjoe 😆
I hope Roofy didn't fall off the roof but he's probably just crashed into something. My foxes sometimes turn up with long scratches but I don't think I've seen one with that kind of wound.
The newcomer looks like she's moulting big time :eyes:
Words
31 May 2007Roofy seems ok on the brief glimpses since then, so hopefully just a surface wound. There's probably not much we can do to help the other fox unless it shows up more regularly, which I'm fairly sure it won't. She is very tatty though.