Daft as a brush but mummy still loves them
FOR many, urban foxes are a damn nuisance – screeching in the small hours, ravaging our bins and leaving everything in their wake tainted with a nasty smell.
Yet for others, they are cute animals who get up to untold mischief like characters from a Beatrix Potter book.
This young family of foxes was spotted cavorting in a back garden in Birmingham by wildlife photographer Pete Walkden.
They were pictured scampering and scrambling in broad daylight, utterly unselfconscious as they tried out their sharp new teeth on each other, the occasional earth worm and – much to her irritation – their mother’s ears, back legs and tail.
One minute they were charging around the pond, the next playfighting in the long grass, examining a garden fork, or just basking in the sun. Despite their high jinks, their mother’s eyes never leave them, licking and nuzzling her babies, and letting them clamber all over her.
Whether you see them as vermin or majestic beasts, the fact is numbers of urban foxes are rising inexorably. Earlier this year, a study by Brighton and Reading universities estimated numbers have quadrupled in the past two decades to around 150,000 – one for every 300 urban residents.
Litters are born around March and spend their first month hidden in a den. By April, they are ready for their first tentative steps into the world, learning to hunt and forage. Come September, this furry quartet will be ready to strike out on their own – and desecrate our bins, yowl in our gardens and ruin our sleep.