Red Fox – Vulpes vulpes

If you have been following my blog this last few weeks you will be aware that I have captured images of a fox on a trail camera almost every day that it has been left out. I had recorded images in the late afternoon as well as night and I had seen that it always crossed the brook in the same place. I was hoping that with a bit of planning I would get the chance to photograph it with the DSLR as it crossed in the daylight. I don't think that foxes are particularly hard to get pictures of but they are usually very wary and you have to be either lucky or very careful and patient to get a good photo. It's always very rewarding if you have a plan and then get the result that you have worked for, thats what drives me on I think. I sat in a waterside hide that I had made from the local vegetation, my camera's lens was protruding out towards the crossing and I was ready if it should show up. I had been there for ages and had already seen and photographed a male Kingfisher and a young Buzzard – more about that later – suddenly without any warning, there it was. I reacted immediately, pressed the shutter and captured half a dozen shots as it trotted over the brook without a care in the world, paddling in the water as it went – brilliant! The result was not necessarily about the quality of the photos but about having a plan and for me, getting the result was very rewarding. I think if reincarnation ever happened to me then the animal that I would least like to come back as would be a fox. Everyone seems to have it in for a them. Farmers and landowners shoot them in the name of wildlife management, gamekeepers shoot and trap them to protect their pheasants and so does anyone else with a few chickens and ducks. Then of course they are hunted on horse back and with dogs. All of this is currently legal in the UK, apart from the hunting from horseback but there hasn't been one single prosecution for that yet even though it's been in place for the last 10 years! So, who would be a fox? Even on TV this evening there is a story about cruelty to foxes but in this case, at least the perpetrators were successfully prosecuted. Here's a link to that case.

This Kingfisher was my main reason for being by the brook today and I was hoping to discover if the territory holder was male or female. For some strange reason it chose not to perch on the branch in front of me but perched just by the crossing which was quite frustrating. I have deliberately keep the image small to reflect how far it was from me. It is a male and I suspect he is the territory holder. The female that I photographed last week must have just been passing through. There is a Buzzard that I see quite often in this area, it is a juvenile and I suspect that it is the same juvenile that I have been photographing at my caravan hide, it is very wary and flies as soon as I approach even from 50 yards away. I managed to get a photograph today but the photograph doesn't prove it's identity either way, except to say that I very strongly suspect that it is the same bird. As the "buzzard" flies the distance is only a mile or so and could be covered in just a minute or so.