Friday Foxes

Usually I only manage to get a tantalising glimpse of the countryside dwelling Foxes where I live. When I’m visiting family in suburban Essex, people hardly blink an eye as a fox trots by on the roadside or suns itself in a garden, so somehow it seems more special to get a good view of one of these handsome creatures out in the country.

This evening after work, as usual, I thought that I’d unwind with a little stroll. Usually I plump for the route along the river and through the water meadows, for the last couple of weeks I’ve been mesmerised by the dancing of Banded Demoiselle dragonflies, but today I walked up to a small wooded area surrounded by arable fields. As I walked along  a densely wooded path, lost in my dreaming thoughts, I heard a harsh coughing that reminded me of my childhood pet Labrador when she’d eaten too much grass and seemed to get balls of it stuck in her throat. Peering through gaps in the foliage with my binoculars I could see a beautiful vixen laying at the base of a tree, sunning herself and dozing.  I wanted to get a photo of her but my view wasn’t clear, so I decided to tread as lightly as I could and follow the path out of the woodland onto the fields and come back into the woodland on the other side of the vixen, hopefully with a better line of sight. After what seemed an eternity of slowly placing my feet carefully and gently on dry twigs that still seemed to make cracking noises as loud as fireworks , I cautiously emerged at meeting place of field and wood. I looked to my left, it’s at this point that I started to hold my breath and I can’t really remember when I took my next breath because I was in that euphoric place that one goes to when you see something special. Fortunately I still had the presence of mind to take some shots of the two beautiful fox cubs that took my breath away.