Photographs of Fox

Location: Stonebridge Park, Nottingham (52.957716, -1.132166 [Google Maps] [maps.live.com] [multimap])

Tags: Britain, England, Europe, Fox, Mammals, Nottingham, Wildlife and Nature

Dates: started Tuesday, 5th July 2005

For some time now my parents have spotted foxes in their suburban garden, and so while I'm staying with them I've been putting food out to try to see them for myself. Sure enough, we have what appears to be a breeding pair venturing in at around the same time every night, just as it's getting dark. There's definitely a male and female, often coming into the garden separately but also occasionally at the same time. However, we haven't seen any young yet, which may be due to the trickiness of getting through our fence (the hole is quite high up).

These foxes have been seen jumping from a standing start up on to an ivy-covered chickenwire fence, and balancing on the top before jumping down. One of them also appears to kip on the roof of our shed when the weather's sunny, which would require some ivy-climbing prowess.

Photographing them has been more of a challenge. They come at dusk, so despite trying to take pictures on or around the longest day of the year it's often too dark for a proper shot - either the pictures are very blurred, or so dark that my usual speed tricks result in completely black images. So I put the food out earlier, set the camera to multi-shot (which, I've found, locks it in to 1/30th second minimum), and hoped for the best. Our vantage point is the kitchen window, so if we're still, we can get pretty close to the action.