Urban Foxes

I have much love for the fox. But then I am not a keen gardener, nor do I keep chickens.

There weren't any when I was a kid and my first urban fox encounters were in Bristol, where there's loads (the BBC's Foxwatch was filmed there after all). I see them round my way in Oxford, but only very late at night or very early in the morning.

this surprises me, as I thought foxes tended to come off worse when they clashed with cats.

Having said that, I came face to face with one the other night walking back through Barnes Common to my house. We stared each other out for a bit, I made to move, so did he, a bit more staring. Then I walked off, throughly pleased. That was nice.

There is a large family of them living in the undergrowth at my parents' house. I like watching them sun themselves on the lawn.

You're only jealous!

http://www.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGPORTRAITS/music/portrait200/drp000/p043/p04345gg1sr.jpg

I have seen others, though not looking so twee.

A bit like me actually.

also, deer, which have been seen wandering near some of the more remote dorms on campus here.

Animals that I have seen in DC include deer, opossums, raccoons, and while I was coming home from work late one night, a cat that had the intelligence to wait for my car to stop at the stop sign and use the crosswalk.

[1] Illegal firearms, while very common in DC, are mostly used on other humans.

The closest I've been to a fox - and a rural one, too - was when I was on a camping holiday as a teenager. I sneaked off into some woods to *cough* get to know myself better *cough*, and was fully occupied when I heard something in the undergrowth. I turned round, and saw a fox stalking something, only about six feet away. He didn't see me until I moved a foot slightly; when he heard the rustle, he turned, saw me, and scarpered.

Even better was a black fox that lived along the Lee Gulch trail in Littleton. When I first saw it I thought it was a dog, but as I got closer I realized that it was a fox. Very cool.

Foxes are kind of fascinating to me, their posture is sorta feline.

Had an interesting encounter with one about a year ago. Was cycling home in the dark when I saw a sizeable lump lying across the cycle lane right next to quite a busy bus stop. I slowed down and saw it was a fox and I could see it was still breathing, so I jumped off my bike to have a look at it. It didn't look great, so I turned to the bus queue - there must have been about 10 people there - and asked if someone would help me move it out of the road. I sort of had visions of the poor thing being pulped by the Number 25 when it turned up. Anyhow, they all totally blanked me apart from one bloke who told me he'd seen it get chased out of the park by a dog and run into the road where it got hit. Then everyone just kind of shuffled away from me like it wasn't really dying there in front of them.

Not really knowing what to do, I bent down to take a closer look. The fox looked pretty stunned and scared, so shielded it from the heavy traffic with my bike - not wanting it to get up and run back into the cars. I was a bit fearful of handling it and the sight of all the blood dribbling from it's mouth didn't really help, but then I just thought fuck it, got someone to watch my bike, picked the poor thing up and carried it back across 5 lanes of traffic and put it down under a bush. At which point it got back up on it's feet and wondered off into the night.

Nick B is a good guy. One day a fox may even save HIS life.

http://animals.timduru.org/dirlist/fox/redfox_Snow_BeautifulCuteFoxie.jpg

Get me a horse and some hounds, and we shall sort this nonsense out!

Yeah, but that's just part of their charm....

Apparently they make such a racket when they're at it because the foxy willy has little backward-facing hooks on it that make sure they stay coupled long enough to ensure conception. And you can imagine what that feels like for the lady fox. Hence the yowling.

Supposedly fox-hunting made little difference to actual fox population in the countryside. It surely wasn't that frequent and widespread in order to cause this increase in population of urban foxes anyway?

Matt saw one on our street the other day, which is unusual as we are in a very built up area where none of the houses even have back gardens, and right next to the seafront. Maybe it was a sea fox.

I don't really see this as a problem as such. Go foxes, says I (I put out some left-over cheesy pasta last night, after I saw the old fox over the fence).

I can't believe nobody helped you with that injured fox Nick

I know. I think it was being pissed off with everyone that gave me the courage to pick the thing up (cos I'm a lightweight with handling beasties normally). It was actually pretty docile though, but that was probably shock.

Since it’s the breeding season the dog fox will shadow the every move of the vixen, she is only receptive for a period of about 3 days. From the dog fox's point of view he must ensure he is there when she is ready. Several attempts to mount the vixen will be rebuffed, sometimes quite aggressively. However, when she is ready she flirts around the dog fox. Caution at this stage is thrown to the wind, and many people will observe the foxes in the process of mating. When the vixen is ready the dog fox will grasp her from behind with his front two legs and start to mate. It is said that at this point the dog fox’s penis is not totally erect until he has actually entered the vagina, when it becomes completely erect and the base of it begins to swell. Also, the vixen's vagina will constrict. This swelling and constriction will cause the pair to lock together, commonly called the 'tie'. When the dog fox ejaculates he attempts to dismount, but as they are still locked together he brings one of his back legs over the vixen’s back and there they stand, back to back, for the duration of the tie, possible for hours.

No barbs anywhere, and appears to be more painful for the male fox than the female.

so really it should be called 'foxing' not 'dogging'

The nearest I've been is when a friend of mine used to work at the driving range doing security at night. Over a couple of years he managed to befriend and eventually hand-feed a couple of young foxes.

I wonder what happened to the foxes after he died, not everyone likes to encourage them.

Hmmm, I don't see foxes as being particularly unhygenic creatures. So they apart the odd bin bag, but maybe people shouldn't leave their rubbish on street so much. And sure, there's the odd outbreak of mange every now and again, but most of the urban foxes you see seem to be in pretty good nick. I think that a lot of what they eat consists of mice and rats and pigeons, so they're probably doing quite a service.

Noise-wise, it sounds like it's just a seasonal thing (and all the posts here complaining about it are from late December/early January!), so if it's any consolation, it won't go on for very long.

Or maybe I could borrow your ears sometimes so as to not be annoyed by their hideous hyena-like shrieking ever again.

But Steve, it's the call of the wild!

I suppose there is an argument that says that it's the cats and dogs that shouldn't really be there, so I wouldn't totally blame the foxes for that. Anyhow - tried earplugs?

ooh good tip...

I suppose there is an argument that says that it's the cats and dogs that shouldn't really be there

you mean people should never have domesticated cats and dogs? but then they'd be running wild as well, or maybe extinct. from a territorial point of view they were there 'first'. my neighbours dogs are fucked up anyway though - they run out into the garden every morning at 6.30am and yap their heads off, seemingly for no reason at all - and again several times through the day. i think fox scent is a big factor in this but the other one is they are complete mentalists.

earplugs are uncomfortable and do not block the sound properly (as they seem to be designed more to block nearer, quieter sounds rather than more distant loud ones).

basically the two combined are making me quite tense at night and i lose sleep because of all the noise. it's no fun.

i think i heard a coyote on the hill across the street! i'm not sure, it was too much of a pained yelp to be a dog bark.

jbr, you're in silverlake/echo park now - right? (non-crepey, i saw you're posting to the "your building" thread) there are many coyotes around, i have seen several in the area late at night. if you had a car and were driving around, you'd see more i think. urban wilderness is fun.

jbr, you're in silverlake/echo park now - right?

correct. but this is my first l.a. coyote spotting, although i've certainly heard tell of them being around at night. i know a few were roaming around town right after the griffith park fire.

feathers are scattered all over my garden!

We've got one in our back yard now. I think it lives in the shed, which is full of the landlord's junk so impossible to get into. It was up on the shed roof earlier. Our cat was eyeing it disapprovingly from the back window.

I used to see it a lot over the road in the building site, I wonder if it used to have an earth there and has been displaced. Looks v mangy and sore, so my wife emailed a fox protection society to see if they'll send us some mange medicine. Apparently they like peanut butter and jam sandwiches!

This one, a regular visitor to our garden, actually looks quite healthy. Joined by a playmate the other morning, jostling over one of Lulu's plush toys that we left out there after a BBQ (and kinda gave up on after it was rained on a few times)...

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1373/1463081820_586884def8.jpg

we had two of them doing an elaborate (and noisy!) mating ritual in the backcourt about two weeks ago. watched them for about 20 mins (feeling like total voyeurs) before they eventually decided to zoom off up the path somewhere else.

interesting mating ritual: lots of yelping, punctuated by running round in circles. reminds me of my student days.

Great photo Michael, and a very handsome beast it is too.

Grimly, that's what they do. My housemate and I play a game called 'cat, fox or human' when we hear that BAAAAO noise and/or hissing and yelping coming from the back garden.

It took some chasing with my fiver-off-a-geezer-in-Lewisham long lens to get that shot, NickB. Wouldn't cooperate in our garden so I eventually snapped it in next door's garden (we do occasionally mow our lawn!) from our bedroom window. Then I felt a bit creepy for pointing my camera into next door's garden...

Our fox looks in considerably poorer condition to that one. He looks v healthy.

If we call the RSPCA will we get billed if they come out and take care of it (in one way or another)?

We'll have urban fox hunting soon, kids on mini motorbikes and quads with packs of pitbull terriers, the rousing sound of the hunting ring tone.

Col. Poo, no the RSPCA won't bill you, I'm pretty sure of that. I think that if they do come out, they'll either catch it and take it to a wildlife rescue centre, or if it's too poorly, it'll probably be put down.

A couple of foxes are now regularly coming over to me on my allotment early in the morning. They'll sit as close as about 2 or 3 metres away in the long grass at the edge of the plot, watching me digging. They're so tame that someone must be feeding them. Must take some jam sammies along with me for them next time.

my former flatmate managed to feed a fox half a mars bar on the meadows in edinburgh about 10 years ago. if you've got food, they tend to be just tame enough :)

OUR BACK YARD
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2358/2459323113_bfb23cb6ed.jpg?v=0

they're so cute!

Does kinda highlight the fact I've done zero gardening in the last 6 months, but it just won't stop raining.

We've been chucking mince laced with mange medicine out there since we saw the cubs, cos the mum's not looking too great. She made it through the winter at least. Didn't see her at all.

Awww.

http://xs227.xs.to/xs227/08186/wild_and_crazy_guys671.jpg

coyotes is good people

I was at the Trails Cafe in Griffith Park just N of Los Feliz and this guy was watching me the whole time

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3274/2423913309_9f6bd0033d.jpg

i think we should train these guys to maul boris voters

There is a dog run right by my flat and our local urban foxes are so polite, they won't crap anywhere else.

Read this as "Unban Foxes". Thought I missed out on some hilarious troll action.

Oh my, a fox on Walthamstow Central escalators.

http://twitpic.com/sebvd

Woah! lol. I wonder where he was coming from.

probably a magical realm

Bushey?

Vulpes vulpes jus commutin

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kit-fox-20-pictures,0,7823132.photogallery

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2012-02/68224655.jpg

lol I missed the previous revive with the fox on Walthamstow Central escalators - that could even be one of the cubs in my pic above all grown up.

No foxes in my yard now though. Landlord built an extension on the back of our flat which involved digging up the earth to put the foundations in. Never see them round our street any more.

15st man 'mugged by fox'

“The best thing to use is a water pistol.”

OTM, carry one all the time....

god people are such cunts

scapegoating bloodlust levels: nearing apocalypse, next it'll be the squirrels, and then we'll have a city free from undomesticated mammals*, nice clean streets! glorious Man, walking alone

*rats and mice don't count, since when have they killed anyone?

fucking unbelievable cunts, just makes me so fucking mad at the sheer stupidity of it all, the sheer, media-led crassness of mind that produces this sort of outcry

otm they should reintroduce wolves and bears into the cities

imago otm

anyone genuinely sent in a tizzy by the ridiculous media fearmongering should probably be put down themselves

Our friends' little boy was bitten by a fox a couple of years ago. He was playing with a ball that rolled down a hole underneath a hut, put his arm down it to get it back and unfortunately a fox happened to be hiding there and gave him a nip on the arm. This was all in the school grounds right behind our house. Somehow the press found out about it (possibly someone at the hospital tipped them off?) and, as it was a bit of a hot topic at the time, they had reporters from the Sun and the Daily Mail etc lurking outside their house, they were offered money to go on daytime TV, my wife got accosted on her way home from school drop-off and was asked if she knew the mum, lots of stuff like that (and six months ago they were contacted by police investigating phone hacking cos their number came up in files amongst the millions of others). Anyhow their attitude to the whole event was (1) the fox was just being a fox, kid probably shouldn't have put his arm down the hole but he was three, what can you do?, and (2) fuck off and report some real news and stop stalking our family.

This was them: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10363646

rabid gutterpress seeks similar quality in fluffy animal; must be carnivorous and willing to die by strychnine

8am this morning on the way to work a fox casually sauntering across the school field behind my house. looked pretty chill.

There was one preening itself on my parents' front lawn on Street View, but sadly it's been updated away.

In the western USA (and beyond) our version of this is urban coyotes. I see them fairly often. They like to eat the local cats.

we had some media hysteria a while back about foxes getting into people's houses and attacking them but i guess a coyote wd be a slightly more fearsome proposition

Slightly larger, same degree of intelligence, but not usually aggressive unless rabid.

yeah i never really bought into the "foxes are out to get us" story either

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2010/6/7/1275932763679/An-urban-fox-in-London-20-006.jpg

Sup

you can't keep a good canid down.

unban foxes

They seem to have become much scarcer in London recently. Least I haven't been seeing nearly as many.

I've had to deal with two dead ones in my garden in the last couple of years. Shovelling it into a bin bag and carrying through to the front for council collection = not very pleasant.

can't you just get a vulture?

I've had to pick up a couple of dead foxes off our street and it's weird how they feel when rigor mortis has set in - really soft fur but as stiff as a board underneath.

my area of London seems to have as many as ever but I also hear them making their freaky sounds through the night (are they fighting or in pain or is that just what they sound like when they want to vocalise things?) much more often than is usual.

They're noisiest when they're mating and then they do all that weird otherworldly screeching and screaming, but that usually happens in Jan/Feb.

just saw one in Baltimore the other night by the reservoir, running across 33rd street

I was teaching Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale today (based on Aesop fox story)

happy to have foxes on my mind and in my life

keep it up foxes

http://www.globalgiants.com/archives/fotos31/GlobalAutoCarfox-05.jpg

The kids named this one Edward, earlier in the summer:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5441/9009813859_986ef3ff56_z.jpg

Hopefully not the one we dragged, lifeless, from under our patio bench a few weeks later.

there's a small park near my house, cutting thru it tonight there was a great big fox sitting amongst the trees watching me pass by with complete chillness. 5 minutes later me and Joel are walking back thru the park and we realise there's not one but a pair of them, still unfazed by passing spectators. then they trot off into the undergrowth to presumably listen to some vulpine Barry White.

london foxes would murder those

all that big city radge

they mostly do what they want in daylight

i hate the phrase 'broad daylight', what a miserable pleonasm

tbh i think the ongoing emboldenment of foxes might well be a country-wide phenomenon

also i read this thread as Unban Foxes, which is exactly how i feel about one of the few regular fauna to grace london streets and the most disparaged of the non-verminous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKF_9ZSCR3U

high point of british culture obv

One stood at my front garden gate today, until I noticed it.

Foxes beyond classic, almost miraculous they put up with humans tbh

two foxes appeared to kiss each other before walking away in opposite directions

<3

i feel like this thread is gonna build to some sort of SF climax as the last notes of a civ destroyed by foxes

http://doublegunshop.com/vinpix2008/dgs-84-vintage-cup-2008.jpg

Don't see so many around my area these days so I was happy to see a very bushy-tailed fella run along my street as I came home around midnight last night.

young foxes squealing

saw 2 cubs last night rooting around under a van before scarpering into some overgrown pre-construction wasteland

was deeply heartening

i think foxes should be unbanned too. hell of a poster but misunderstood.

I spotted either a pair of foxes or coyotes scurrying across the street a little while back, which is pretty unusual around here. In my neighborhood, we have a very large and growing deer population that is rapidly getting out of hand, plus a random assortment of skunks, raccoons, and armadillos. Up until recently, my backyard was a regular old vermin preserve.

Fox in the snow, where do you go to find something you can eat...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2SoGHFM18I

such ravage
many grow

Always hatefucking outside my window

there's a presumably escaped pet rabbit that lives somewhere behind the school playing field, i see it most mornings sat on the field within fleeing distance of the dense hedgerow, a big fat black and white lad. when he disappears for a few days i wonder if the foxes have had him but he's clearly quite a canny survivor by now, he's been around for months

there are foxes around here. they mind their own business while looking like a million bucks.

i think foxes should be unbanned too. hell of a poster but misunderstood.

― soxahatchee (Treeship), Tuesday, May 13, 2014 8:17 PM (Yesterday)

Unban Foxes

there are foxes around here. they mind their own business while looking like a million bucks.

Unfortunately, my neighborhood just has a million bucks. Also, several female deers have given birth in my front yard. Must look like a maternity ward to them. And my front lawn must look like a deer toilet...

It would be nice to have some foxes show up and get these fuckers in line.

Foxes are tad small to hunt deer. Coyotes seems like the better bet against deer.

young fox nonchalantly walking along the pavement on a warm spring afternoon

found a fox cub having a casual nap on a driveway a couple of nights ago.

would've been the king of fox-loving twitter if i could've gotten a decent photo.

Re: coyotes vs. deer. Because they don't hunt in packs like wolves, coyotes can't possibly predate on adult does or bucks. Young fawns are small enough to be coyote prey, though.

Thought this was going to be a thread about attractive young ladies in hip hop fashions.

Thought i wasn't going to FP anybody on this thread

for the sheer clumsiness more than anything

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02313/terryJune_2313663b.jpg

L-R: Hip Hop fashion; attractive young lady

From FB, a Fox at the venue a day early for a Belle & Sebastian show

https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-9/10409158_10152364240853500_7229073569516468790_n.jpg

Louise from across the road warned me today about a deadly fox in the area, when it appeared in her garden she ran at the poor bugger with a hard bristle sweeping brush. I tried to explain to her that this fox was probably in need of hydration and terrified.

They were doing their business in our front garden so I invested in one of these (invented by my late brother-in-law, incidentally):

http://www.fox-watch.co.uk/

Foxes steal newspapers! Just what are they trying to do by blocking humans' access to information?

they developed a taste for charles krauthammer's washington post columns after enjoying his appearances on fox news, the cable channel of choice for that branch of the canidae family

fox attempts to steal wallet

https://twitter.com/Hag0605/status/706969998867243008?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

There are some large and partly overgrown gardens at the back of our house and there's at least 3 foxes living in there. There are 2 we see together quite often lately so I think they probably have cubs. Just now we saw the pair of foxes in the garden behind ours right by these 2 black cats (there are loads of cats around here too) and they pretty much just ignored/weren't bothered by each other. The foxes were running around the garden, probably looking for food, while the cats just stayed in the same spot. We were a bit concerned at first when we saw the 2 foxes right next to one of the cats (didn't see the other cat at first) but the cat just stood its ground I guess.

All the foxes look a bit mangy. One of them has no fur on its tail at all. Sometimes I leave some bread out in the garden with some marmite and mange medicine on it (apparently foxes love marmite), but I was looking at the bottle and it's homeopathic so I'm a bit skeptical that it actually does anything for them. We got it from a fox protection society though. I'm also not convinced the foxes are even the ones eating it with all the seagulls around here.

i love the late night demonic howls of foxes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk1mAd77Hr4

hear this kind of thing almost every night at my parents' house

I had to jam on the brakes the other day because a fox trotted across the road in front of my car carrying something in its mouth that might well have been a young rabbit. There's at least one full family of them living in the dunes behind our housing estate.

Wish this was a thread about broads

this guy comes to visit me sometimes when i'm mucking about at my allotment...

https://image.ibb.co/iHXW85/frrfrr.jpg

that is the sweetest looking vulpine

omg are there amateur wildlife photography awards

We eat crisps together and i fill him in on the football

a+ fox, would feed crisps to

What's under the bottle-cloches?

i sow my broad beans under them - they keep the frost off in the winter / help retain moisture in drier weather / holds the slugs at bay / stops cute furry mammals from digging them up

Milennial Ygritte at the bar
Sorry Wrong life

The foxes around my way seem very thin and I'd like to feed them, but I have a very large and imperious cat who chases them out the street...

Lovely picture NickB

the sounds these guys make

this fox is just screaming outside my window rn like a banshee.

I saw a fox last week when I was walking to the post office. Prior to this the wildest animals I had seen near me (I live in a large-ish city in NJ) were rabbits (a few here and there), the odd raccoon, and groundhogs (a whole colony of them, at least 3 or 4). The fox just came jogging down the street, sniffing at people's lawns like a dog. Of course I didn't have my phone with me, or I'd have taken a picture. It was totally unafraid of me. Exciting as hell.

Last night one stood next to me outside my house for the time it took to smoke two cigs. I love them.

misread as Unban Foxes

This fox can't stop staring through Swedish couple's window

Well, it's their own fault for giving him ham on Christmas.

that’s a beauty of a fox, would feed ham to any time

There are 3 foxes in the 2 gardens to the right of mine. They all look good, no signs of mange, I guess probably the mangy foxes that lived there last year have died and these have moved in to take their place. Been watching them out the top window for a while. Not sure what they are up to - at first I assumed it was a male and a female and the third one was a rival male, it is mating season after all. But they all seem friendly with each other, and have been jumping between the 2 gardens, sometimes 2 in one and 1 in the other, but not the same pair all the time.

Fox! There's one wandering around my neighborhood today, confirmed by two neighbors. It passed me twice while I was working in the front yard, but I only caught a glimpse before I RAN IN THE HOUSE LIKE THE COWARD I AM. Just phoned the city and was told that wildlife is part of the city, and they won't do anything unless the animal's injured. "What should I do if I get home one night and find myself face-to-face with it?" "Uh...try to scare it away."

They're not dangerous, are they?

Unless it's rabid, you're in more danger from a domestic cat

Thanks--I skimmed through this thread, and that seemed to be the general feeling. If I disappear off this board, though, tell the world my story.

Is it OK if we snicker a bit as we tell it?

We've always had foxes in my neighborhood, but in the past year or so they've done particularly well. It used to be I'd just hear them in the distance if I was up in the middle of the night, but now I'll see one about every two weeks trotting home with a squirrel in its mouth if I'm out walking the dog at 7 a.m.

This has led to some hilarious posts on Facebook/Nextdoor along the lines of "just want to warn you to keep your dogs and cats inside - there's a fox in the neighborhood!" FORTUNATELY always educated by dozens of other commenters.

However, there's one person who swears up and down that they saw a coyote, which are a bit more rare around these parts and would be a good reason to lock up your dogs and cats. But a lot of the foxes have brownish coats so I'm guessing they just saw one of them.

a fox stole one of my daughter's school shoes off the front verandah one night--they'd been left out to dry after she jumped in mud etc--and ate half of it

Just saw this guy again through my window--he has apparently moved into the neighborhood.

They're all over the place in London, they're so common, and so visible, they almost don't even register as wild animals anymore.

Hate to say it, but I think what I saw this morning might have been a coyote. The one a few days ago, even though I only caught a momentary glimpse, was definitely orangey; what I saw this morning (I was inside and had a better look) looked more greyish, no orange, and wasn't a dog. It's a nice day, so, as always, people are out everywhere walking dogs and young children. I guess it's not a big deal--maybe it just goes its own way and avoids everybody.

I see loads of foxes where I live. The most startling thing I've seen in recent times is wild deers appearing in the local woods every summer. Last summer I thought the old guy who told me there was a couple of them wandering about on what is locally called the mountains (they are just big hills) that he must have been going senile, until I saw them with my own eyes.

(xp) Glad to say there are no coyotes in London! I don't know what size coyotes are but foxes are pretty small.

From their respective articles in Wikipedia:

Coyote males average 8 to 20 kg (18 to 44 lb) in weight, while females average 7 to 18 kg (15 to 40 lb), though size varies geographically. Northern subspecies, which average 18 kg (40 lb), tend to grow larger than the southern subspecies of Mexico, which average 11.5 kg (25 lb).

Red fox adult weights range from 2.2–14 kg (5–31 lb), with vixens typically weighing 15–20% less than males.

Definitely a coyote. My next-door neighbour says there have been two or three in our area as of late, caused by a nearby construction site interfering with their food supply. She has a small dog, so she's worried. I looked up this video on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB1V0YPIrSo

If it comes to that, I guess a shoe would be the nearest thing to throw--the yelling and screaming part would come easy for me. (You're talking about someone who, when I was teaching out in a portable once, got the teacher next door to come in and kill a dragonfly for me--something she was kind enough to bring up at my retirement.)

Yup. Channel your inner ape and go apeshit. Since most animals already consider us to be borderline psychotic and dangerously unbalanced, they will generally treat you like kryptonite.

They piss me off. They bark and fuck outside my bedroom window most nights, and it's a thoroughly horrible noise.

You're only jealous!

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Monday, December 29, 2003 6:18 AM (nineteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I do not deny the element of envy. But when you're having a hard enough time getting to sleep....

This is where I usually post fox pics, is it?

Alley next to our garden, a few weeks ago:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52846926408_76939e6aa7_b.jpg

what an absolute beauty

i hear coyotes yipping and yowling most nights but i have no luck nor skill as wildlife paparazzi so just envision a pack of big scruffy tan foxes high on laughing gas

something I've noticed since moving to Brighton is the lack of foxes compared to Hastings which was full of them. upthread NickB has posted about them so they obviously do exist here, but I never see any, whereas I would see them all the time in Hastings, badgers too.

https://i.postimg.cc/Pqv2QwMG/IMG-20230622-WA0001.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/sXNfdbhG/20230623-174520.jpg

The local couple had babies this year that run round the street and gardens. The above one is getting into trolling

I respect their trolling skills. There's one that just stares from the railway embankment behind out house, impassive, as my dog winds himself up yelling at him.

Our dog (very territorial, very barky, self-styled snarling bane of all foxes) apparently went out for a pee while this scene was playing out and just straight up didn't notice it was sitting there

We had a fox hanging out in our backyard for a few days, hiding under bushes and rolling in the grass. At one point he came out when the cat and I were in the yard, and he seemed more intimidated by the cat's display of aggression than by mine.