I’ve procrastinated for a long time before publishing this blog. I processed a few of the photos for it, then turned away from them for almost a month. I knew I would get back to enjoy them, but I was avoiding the memories of a bittersweet experience.
In mid-May 2019, we discovered a red fox den on our property. There were four kits, and I spent several weeks photographing them on and off as they grew. I published three blogs with photos of them. Here is one photo from May 24, 2019.
You can see the 2019 red fox pups if you click HERE and then click the links at the bottom of each blog. You will notice those kits are much more yellow-red than the gray ones in this blog because they were several weeks older when I first found them.
Hoping for a return of the foxes in 2020, I set up a trail camera near the den on March 7. It immediately picked up adult foxes walking at night in the snow near the den. Then on March 17 at 11:12 AM, to my horror, a trail cam video showed two dogs sticking their heads into the den. Around 7 PM that night a trail cam video showed a beautiful red fox sniffing all around the opening to the den before departing.
On March 22 we spotted an adult red fox in our yard. That buoyed our hopes that they would use the den again.
On March 23 a video taken at 8:50 AM showed an adult carrying a fairly large prey item into the den. That night it snowed, and the the videos revealed a lot of fox activity around the den.
I got a quick photo of a red fox as it ran through our yard, pausing briefly to look in my direction, on March 29. It was quite far away.
Daylight videos on April 4 and 7 showed two foxes near the den. One showed a fox emerging from the den shortly after the other adult arrived at the den entrance. Below is one frame from that video just after the one on the right emerged from the den. It appears that this is the vixen and she is pregnant.
On April 23, I spotted an adult red fox lying in our yard. It eventually got up and slowly jogged toward its den picking up a food item along the way. During this time period the trail cam captured numerous videos of prey being carried to the den.
At 4:12 AM on April 25, the trail cam first recorded kits outside the den.
I had set up a blind a fair distance from the den. Jann and I finally saw kits in the early morning of April 26. We watched and I photographed them at the edge of the den for about seven minutes. Here are some photos from those precious few minutes.
We were elated that the fox couple had brought us some cuddly little bundles of joy and excitement. And this year we found them much earlier in the spring than in 2019 because we were looking for them.
Here are photos from the first day we saw the pups each year for comparison. You can see how their coloring changes rapidly with age.
We got a heavy wet snow during the very early morning of April 27. In one nighttime video while it was snowing, we were able to count SEVEN kits. The vixen usually has six to eight mammaries.
The kits stayed hunkered down during the daylight hours of April 27.
I was able to photograph the fox kits for all of three minutes the afternoon of April 28. Here are three of the few photos.
I invited a photographer friend who came and sat behind the blind for four hours the morning of April 29. No foxes appeared while he was there. I also did not see any that day.
When I reviewed the trail cam videos from the night of April 28-29, they appeared to show the adults moving the kits from the den. It is common for foxes to have more than one den. An earlier trail cam video had shown two neighborhood dogs approaching the den, sniffing at the opening, and urinating on the mound just outside the den. A canine expert told me that dogs could absolutely cause the foxes to move their den.
The red foxes were gone. We were extremely disappointed.
We didn’t realize it but, between April 26 and May 6, we would go from wild exuberance to dark disappointment to astonished elation to feeling extremely devastated. During that time I must’ve walked 10 miles around our property and some of the neighboring properties looking in vain for the new den. We live very much out in the woods bordering a large piece of Dartmouth property.
The morning of May 6, I noticed some tracks near the den. I went to recover the trail cam, which I had set up at a different location on our property in the hope of catching a sign of where the adult foxes might be. When I got back, a small red fox kit was standing near the den looking at me. Miraculously they had returned.
I slowly crept behind the blind and took some photos with the lightweight camera that I was carrying. Here is the kit sniffing the ground outside the den.
As the morning progressed I took more photos with that camera handheld as the number of kits outside the den went from one to two to three to four to five.
We were elated that they returned. How did that happen? They may simply follow the adults around when encouraged to do so. However, a nighttime video from eight days earlier showed one kit being carried in the mouth of a parent away from the den.
Years ago I watched a dozen tiny common merganser chicks jump out of their very high nest box, bounce off the brush below, and scramble into the lake swimming in a disorganized mess. The female parent had encouraged this action. Then she saw me as I slowly approached in a boat. She said something to the chicks. They immediately lined up behind her and, over the next 10 seconds or so, the line got shorter and shorter as they walked onto her back. About half of them were on her back and the others were trailing quite closely as they swam away from my boat. It was a magical experience. It taught me that animals can learn very early to obey their parents.
The kits slept, played, fought, and in general looked very cute. Still shooting handheld with my lightweight camera, I got these photos. You can click the center of any one and then use the arrows to step through them at your own pace.
Here are a pair of kits engaged in a minor tussle.
I only saw five kits at any one time. I wonder if two got lost in the den switches.
At 10:45 I switched to a heavier camera and much heavier and slightly longer lens with a heavy tripod. This made me less visible since my body was behind the blind and my head was mostly hidden by the lens. Two pups turned their backs on me for my first photo with this rig.
A kit fought with a stick.
And one decided to test its ability to pounce.
Here is a twosome looking cute.
One pup spent quite a bit of time scratching its neck.
This pair found an interesting way to switch positions.
As a kit started to emerge from the den another one decided to pounce.
A pair got into a fight while a third kit looked on.
Yet another skirmish.
The kits seemed to be testing each other.
I doubt any get hurt in their fights.
Here are more photos from May 6, 2020. You can click the center of any one and then use the arrows to step through them at your own pace.
My last photo on May 6, and what turned out as my last photo of the kits in 2020, showed a pair contemplating the woods.
On the morning of May 7, my photographer friend came over again and spent another four hours behind the blind watching for the kits. No luck. The parents had moved again to an alternate den. I’m sure this was caused by the dogs again. I have since determined who owns the dogs and spoken to the owner. I hope it will not happen again if the foxes return next spring.
I spent another 10 hours traipsing around the woods, one of those days after a snowstorm when I could follow fox tracks. Again without any success in finding the alternate den.
Maybe they’ll return next spring.
I hope you enjoyed the photos I took on the one full day I spent with the fox pups in 2020.
If you would like to see the fox kits from 2019, here are the three blogs. Each should open in a separate tab.
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