Brush with a fox led to 13 years of foster parenting
During these past few days, there have been hints of red in the shape of rowan berries spilt from the trees and immediately seized upon by some of the neighbourhood’s blackbirds.
In fact, as yet they are not fully ripe and are therefore more orange than red. Nevertheless, they are an indication that the summer is now dwindling towards what, across the Pond, they call the ‘fall’.
As the berries ripen, I am sure that more of the local merles and mavises will be eager to feast upon them. However, as usual, there will be nothing in the way of rowan berries left here when in October, the redwings and fieldfares descend upon us from Scandinavia.
There was red too in a breaking of August’s silence with a little outbreak of redpoll song buzzing away to tell us that some birds are already emerging from the moult, pristine in new clothes and pronouncing their new ‘décor’ in song, as if this really was for them the feel-good factor. The same may be said of the goldfinches which later, joined in the music making. This surely must be another expression of that feel-good factor because they are certainly not preparing themselves for another breeding season. Between now and that next event, comes winter when a good set of feathers is of the essence for protection against the elements.
The most impressive appearance of red however was the sighting of a red fox in all its splendour, a dog fox I think, in full, magnificent flow and in very good condition, right to the white tip on the end of his tail. He was a splendid example of his species. Foxes, of course, have a reputation which has caused man to fairly universally regard the them as the enemy personified, although perhaps until the mid-eighteenth century, it was the wolf that fired mankind’s ire.
Indeed, the Scottish royal court seemed obsessed with the aim of exterminating the wolf and large hunts with that object in mind, were a frequent occurrence. Of course, with plenty of wild country north of the Border, the wolf had hung on in Scotland long after it had disappeared from the rest of Britain. The final denouement is said to have happened sometime in the 1740s when a man by the name of Mcqueen was said to have been the slayer of the last wolf in Scotland. The late David Stephen, an expert on the subject of wolves however, reckoned that it could have been the 1780s before the wolf finally passed into extinction.
However, in the English shires especially, the fox now became the focus of the chase. For a very short period of my life I was resident in Leicestershire, the very epicentre of hunting country. Indeed, it wasn’t long before I begun to understand that fox hunting wasn’t quite the pursuit it was made out to be, For instance, I soon learnt that one of the employees of the hunt was busy rearing fox cubs which would be released for the hunt to pursue at a later date, an act of kindness which soon turned out to be an act of cruelty and a negation of the stated ambition and objective of the hunt to control foxes!
I also quickly learned that Leicestershire’s farming community didn’t like foxes and were prepared to take pot shots at them at every opportunity. In fact, I also quickly learned that if foxes have to be controlled, hunting on horseback is probably the least effective way of achieving that goal. A good few years later, I got to know foxes a lot better and indeed, enjoyed many intimate moments with fox cubs. I also came to realise that foxes are not quite the villains they are made out to be. Indeed, on occasions rather than villains they can be aides and even heroes!
I well remember a gentleman from a London suburb telling me the story that he had bought a new house but when he and his family took up residence, they were horrified to discover that the surrounding area was riddled with populations of rats. Subsequently, he also discovered that a vixen had dug an earth beneath his garden shed where she eventually gave birth to a litter of cubs. Very quickly thereafter, he realised that the rat population was rapidly reducing because the vixen and probably her mate had discovered the rats as a valuable source of food for their family. Before long, there were no rats!
And of course, the urban fox has become a well photographed animal which has perhaps transformed the attitude of people towards foxes. Whilst country folk can still be intolerant of foxes, townsfolk have taken urban foxes to their hearts albeit that from time to time, there are reports of conflict with foxes occasionally biting folk and even attacking children in their homes. From what I know of foxes, I am sure that these incidents occur when foxes find themselves trapped or cornered in unfamiliar circumstances and panic, lashing out, as it were, in a blind rage.
In the main, foxes are naturally very cautious about their relationships with humankind, even in the circumstances where they are living cheek by jowl with humans and very much benefitting from this relationship. Urban foxes are rapidly become the scaffies of this world, devouring the remains of take-away meals with enthusiasm and raiding bins for the waste we unwittingly provide that is becoming a major factor in their survival in the urban setting.
Having said that, I was made aware of the confidence some urban foxes can show in their relationship with people. My sister-in-law in London, used to feed foxes in her garden on a regular basis and eventually the family of foxes she shared that garden with became so confident that the vixen, especially, was known to paw the French window of the kitchen if she was feeling hungry, as if to say, ‘it’s time you fed me!’ On occasions when I stayed with them, I was constantly amazed by the rapport that seemed to exist between fox and mankind.
My own encounters of a furred kind, when it came to foxes, began with a ‘phone call I received from a local keeper. He had a fox cub and wondered if I could take it off his hands. It transpired that the previous day he had sent his terriers down a fox earth to deal with a new litter of cubs. Job done he thought! However, on passing the earth the next day he discovered a single cub wandering about at the entrance to the earth. Its eyes were not even open and it clearly would need a good deal of help in order to survive. Not having the heart to dispatch it, he took the mite home. However, Mrs gamekeeper was not prepared to mother a fox cub and there followed that frantic ‘phone call!
We called her Sithean, pronounced shee-han, gaelic for ‘the fairy’, as her earth had been close to a hill renowned for associations with the fairies. Accordingly, we became foster parents to this blind little chocolate coloured waif and as she grew her, attachment to us became ever stronger. After all, we were the first creatures she had seen when her eyes opened. She was gentle and she was surprisingly loving and as she grew, she became a star of my live slideshows and a frequent visitor to schools, all of which she took in her stride. She lived with us for nearly 13 years and was delightfully unforgettable.
Foxes of course, get the blame for killing lambs and of course poultry and especially pheasants, although my own little flock of hens perished as the result of an incursion of not foxes but pine marten. As I am not interested in shooting, I am always sceptical about the time and effort devoted to the killing of predators of pheasants which of course are destined to be shot anyway. But that’s another story!