How To Track A Fox

After the amazing fox sighting we had yesterday morning I thought it might be awhile before the fox came back this way.  Boy did I have that wrong!  

This morning when I looked out  the snow directly outside the living room windows was filled with animal  tracks. Sunshine and blue skies made a perfect opportunity to get pictures.  Trust me when I tell you these footprints and other imprints were made by our fox.  I'm no Daniel Boone, but it was about 5:15PM last evening when the fox sauntered into the garden.  Both Ed and I stood and watched the fox while he was hunting for voles.  Picture a breathtaking male fox with black legs, red orange fur, black orange and white ears, and a white tip on the end of his tail.  First he stood and listened sniffing the air.  Slowly he sniffed walking slowly along the tunnel that he could tell was under the snow.  Next he hesitated, shifted his weight to his hind legs and  pounced. His front feet and his nose came down first and he dug a hole hoping to come up with a brown hairy vole.  This process was repeated over and over.  Sometimes he would just stand and wait. Sometimes he would sit with his tail wrapped around his legs.  There is one actual fox sitzmark in the above photo.  

Now I really hate it when one of those furry rodents surprises me and makes me scream.  Not only that but voles are bulbs and root eaters.  Obviously Ed and I were rooting for the fox.  All of this hunting and no finding was getting a little depressing.

I stayed watching though and the fox and I  were both rewarded for our patience. The hole closest to us was the next to the last pounce.  That fox was poetry in motion. He went from still to pounce in seconds, pinned that vole to the ground with his feet, grabbed it with his teeth and tossed it high into the air. The vole seemed stunned. The fox watched it for a moment then played with it for awhile.  Letting it go and then catching it again, not unlike a house cat might do with a mouse toy.  In the end he held the vole down with his foot biting it a few times until it stopped moving.  I watched as he chewed off the head, swallowed it and then swallowed the rest of the vole.  The fox trotted off taking a walk on top of Ed's curved wall, down to the basement door and back, and across the parking lot past the bluebird house until he was out of sight.

 These are brand new rodent tunnels made in this morning's fresh snow.  I could be wrong, but I think the fox will be back.  Perhaps it is cheating to watch what happens and track the animal afterwards, but it sure works for me!