{"id":1549,"date":"2010-01-03T21:01:17","date_gmt":"2010-01-03T21:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1549"},"modified":"2013-11-12T00:35:58","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T00:35:58","slug":"the-mystery-of-the-bold-vixen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/the-mystery-of-the-bold-vixen\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mystery of the Bold Vixen"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The picture I posted last night of the bold vixen was one of well over a hundred I took during a 30 minute period out in the sub zero temperatures. She was absolutely her usual friendly self, despite not having been around since late October. Well, I say she hasn&#39;t been around, but that&#39;s not quite true. She has appeared on the trail cam footage, most notably on the first video I posted on <a href=\"http:\/\/my.opera.com\/Words\/blog\/2009\/12\/19\/foxes-in-the-snow-trail-cam-footage\" target=\"_blank\">19th December<\/a>. If you check the comments on that post you&#39;ll see a short discussion about a fox with either matted hair or bald patches. <\/p>\n<p>Now look at this.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/fox_bold_vixen_0301107376.jpg' \/><\/span> <span class=\"aligncenter\">The bold vixen with &#39;alopecia&#39;.<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>The patches run down one side of her, and have a light covering of dark under-fur. There are signs of some regrowth, and no signs of any wound. I&#39;m utterly puzzled by what could have caused it, but it is quite unlike the usual signs of mange and looks more like &#39;injury&#39; than disease. Here&#39;s a close up.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/fox_bold_vixen_patches_0201107345.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/fox_bold_vixen_patches_0201107345.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" alt=\"fox bald patches not mange\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Click to enlarge<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a discussion over on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk\/forums\/mammal-forums\/64203-fox-bald-patches.html\" target=\"_blank\">Wild About Britain<\/a>, there have been several theories proposed, from a car exhaust to moult to some signs of shaving. It&#39;s unlikely that I&#39;ll discover the cause but I wouldn&#39;t be entirely surprised if she&#39;s had some sort of intervention to tidy it up, whatever it was. It doesn&#39;t look like the result of a bite (badger?) as I would have expected to see some more obvious scarring. She&#39;s otherwise very healthy, though she has picked up a small scar on her nose.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/fox_bold_vixen_0201107325.jpg' \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In terms of her behaviour, she hasn&#39;t changed a bit, and it took only a few minutes before she decided to settle down for a bit of peace and quiet.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/fox_bold_vixen_0301107436.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/fox_bold_vixen_0301107438.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>All of which means I&#39;ve not had time to post about other recent sightings, which include a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/egret_gulls_2812096309.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">little egret<\/a> from several days ago, and further encounters with the local kestrels.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/kestrel_0201107203.jpg' \/><\/span> <br \/><span class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/button.php?u=Words\" width=\"0\" height=\"0\" alt=\"Nature Blog Network\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/><i>Camera note: all the photos of the fox were taken with the Canon 40D and EF 24-105 F4L IS USM lens. The kestrel was photographed with the EF 400mm f\/5.6L USM lens.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,4],"tags":[1128,1152],"class_list":["post-1549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-of-prey","category-foxes","tag-fox","tag-kestrel","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}