We’ve known about a fox in our neighborhood for a couple years or so. We’ve occasionally seen it trotting down the road; one of our neighbors has also seen it several times. Until recently, however, I’ve never had a chance to photograph it. On April 3, I woke up to see the fox sitting in our backyard right outside our bedroom window. There was still quite a bit of snow on the ground and it was sitting on one of the paths where the snow was packed down. Naturally, I grabbed my camera, hurriedly put on my 70-200mm lens and took some pictures. It turned out that there was no need to hurry; the fox was quite relaxed and sat there looking around for at least 10 minutes. The only problem photographically is that I had to take photos through the window, which had a very noticeable affect on the focus.
We started to see the fox every day or two as it relaxed in our back yard or cut across our yard heading to points unknown. Two weeks later (4/17) my wife told me that she had seen four baby foxes playing behind the shed in our neighbor’s yard. In hopes of seeing them I walked quietly to the back of our yard. I caught site of some brown bundles of fur but, despite my stealth, they quickly moved under the shed. After standing patiently for no more than 5 minutes, one brave little one emerged and walked around near the shed. I took a number of photos of the young fox but two fences between us created some interference. Several times it was spooked and ran back under the shed, emerging after a few minutes to explore some more.
We continued to see the adult on occasion but it wasn’t until Saturday (4/27) that we saw the baby again. This time they were both in our backyard. The kit was quite a bit larger than it had been ten days before. While the adult sat and kept watch, the kit ran around the yard exploring its new surroundings. Every once in a while it would return to its mother for a quick visit before running off again. They both eventually trotted to the back of our yard and made their way back to the shed. I hope to see more of them in the future but it’s hard to say how long they’ll hang around.
More pictures of this family of fun Foxes are given below.