The fox, and I’m still working on the assumption that it’s always the same fox, has become a regular visitor to the garden. It’s now appearing nearly every night, with or without the enticement of food.
It always enters the garden via the hole in the fence created for the hedgehogs and I have been keeping records of the time of night that it visits. I don’t know if this will lead to any sparkling insights but it seemed a good place to start. There are of course outliers but in general it comes in between the hours of 01:00-03:00 in the morning, really the darkest and quietest period of the night.
I still haven’t managed to ID it in any way, for example by face markings. There may be a patch of fur which is quite ‘obvious’ on it’s left hind leg but I rather hesitate to use this as an ID. I don’t know if it is something common or even normal for foxes, I have no frame of reference. So I’ll keep looking.
After it’s close run in with one of the cat the next creature the Fox has come across in the garden is a hedgehog, on film here.
I wouldn’t have anticipated anything dramatic, a shouldn’t fox would bother a hedgehog, but in this case the fox seems particularly wary. I’ve also seen it become very scared of the cats so I think in general it’s very nervous, possible a sign that it’s a young fox.
As I now clearly have a regular fox visit I’ve created a dedicated section on my website where I can gather the various videos and updates.
Don’t hesitate to check it out here.
Chatou Nature Blog 