garden fox

I spent a pleasant hour yesterday morning watching this fellow relaxing in our back garden.  He must have felt pretty secure because he was quite content to stretch out and sleep, or at least snooze, in plain sight.

Algthough widely regarded as a nuisance I like the idea of this handsome creature thriving in the suburban wilds.  When I was young, even in the nineteen seventies, the fox was still a firmly rural creature and sightings in towns and cities would be cause for excited comment.  We have three, I think, which regularly wander through our garden.  They are still wild and keep their distance, but there is certainly peaceful co-existence between us.  And I admire their survival through a cold and long winter – other creatures have not been so lucky: there is a distinct shortage of the usual garden birds this year.