{"id":935,"date":"2007-09-02T22:09:27","date_gmt":"2007-09-02T21:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/935"},"modified":"2013-11-24T16:37:48","modified_gmt":"2013-11-24T16:37:48","slug":"autumn-fox-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/autumn-fox-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Autumn Fox update"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->August\/September is the time of year that young foxes are generally becoming fully independent and although they are still very much around, their behaviour changes and they tend to behave more like adults (i.e. cautiously). Part of this behaviour is territorial. The youngsters need to find their own range and to do so they compete with all the other local foxes. I first noticed this in 2005 when the young cub Blondie (son of the Old Dog Fox) vanished in mid-August and only showed up <a href=\"http:\/\/my.opera.com\/Words\/blog\/show.dml\/21009\" target=\"_blank\">one more time<\/a> after that. We&#39;d seen the adult&#39;s behaviour change over the months. Initially he was a perfectly attentive parent but as autumn approached he adopted a much more aggressive stance designed to drive the young rival away.<\/p>\n<p>Last year the pattern was slightly different and the adult was rarely seen at all. The majority of the cubs (5 survived the summer) had moved away by September, leaving only Roofy in the territory. So I&#39;ve not been surprised by the reduction in fox sightings as we move into autumn. <\/p>\n<p>When I last saw the young fox (23rd August) his rear leg limp had recovered, but he was carrying his right fore leg. Again, this isn&#39;t unusual. Foxes  are prone to injury, either through falls from height (watching a fox in a tree makes you realize just how easily they can hurt themselves) or altercations with cars (the commonest cause of urban fox death). Research carried out in Bristol a few years ago found that about 70% of foxes over 5 years old had sustained a broken bone at some time (data from <i>Urban Foxes<\/i> by Stephen Harris and Phil Baker). Foxes are very adept at managing with these injuries which often heal without intervention. And with intervention even more remarkable recoveries are possible. Our local rescue centre released a three-legged one-eyed fox (road accident victim) over a year ago and it was later reported to be raising young. <\/p>\n<p>So to come up to date on the local foxes. Roofy hasn&#39;t been seen for over a month, but we&#39;ve had fleeting sightings of at least one of the shy cubs (you can tell by the white tip on the brush). And the bolder cub is still around, though much less frequent a visitor. He did however show up yesterday late afternoon. He&#39;s still limping slightly on the front leg, but his coat and brush are already beginning to thicken up for winter. Overall he looked in good shape.<\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/fox_cub_0109076815.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/fox_cub_0109076835.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/fox_cub_0109076851.jpg' \/><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4],"tags":[1128],"class_list":["post-935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-behaviour","category-foxes","tag-fox","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}