OT: Foxes WTF?

Anyone know whether it is SOP for a pair of foxes to lope across an open field (behind us) towards our back fence (15 cm mesh) and for one to pass through the fence with the other close behind?

This was in the middle of one of the sunny days we've been having recently.

Reply to
Tim Streater
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Are you querying the fact that they got through a 15cm mesh wire fence, or that they were loping across a field in broad daylight? If the latter, our kitchen window overlooks a field used for grazing horses and not been cultivated for many decades, and we regularly (like once a month) see a fox working its way down the opposite field boundary looking for rabbits, in broad daylight. Nothing remarkable in that, and often a different fox from the previous occasion. As for going through the fence, 15cm square does seem a bit small, but they obviously managed it. Perhaps they were youngsters and not fully grown yet, and perhaps it's a regular fox run but you've never noticed them, especially if they mostly use it at night.

Reply to
Chris Hogg

Did you check the fence? Could they have gone under?

We had a fox that used to sunbathe on our back lawn. I haven't seen him for a while. He had a bad leg, so I assume he must have been hit by a car. Maybe he was even less lucky on another occasion.

We're in London, and I often see foxes out in the daytime. they are not really afraid of humans here. Nobody shoots them, and there are no packs of hounds.

Reply to
GB

In message , Tim Streater writes

Yes. I didn't believe it either. You may find it is a regular route and they have chosen a slightly wider gap.

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Reply to
Tim Lamb

they normally burrow under fences or manage to find a part with a not very tight bottom tension wire. They seem to be mating early this year and I've also noticed more Badgers about doing the same around her. I wonder which creature is next for urban areas?

Lucky the UK does not have Crocodiles or Bears, but wild Boar are getting closer apparently. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

The latter. We are completely rural here, no question of these being "urban foxes". Behind the field (about 200 yards beyond our back fence) there are substantial woods where I imagine they normally live.

In seven years, I've seen maybe two rabbits, plenty of bodgers (grrr!) and no hedgehogs. The field has (I think) winter wheat.

I was just surprised they were making a beeline for our group of houses whereas they could have avoided them to cross the road and reach another substantial field and more woods beyond that.

Reply to
Tim Streater

Yes, so are we. A small hamlet of four properties, three of which are or were farms.

We see rabbits almost daily. At their peak, in the summer, their numbers reach a couple of dozen or more. Our neighbour who owns the field in question, then gets in a man with a gun (a powerful air-rifle) to cull them. They burrow under our garden walls and come up in the garden and nibble the grass, but do no damage to any other plants (I don't grow veg), although the brick pavers in the drive have collapsed a couple of times where does have made temporary stops to rear young. I lift the pavers and pack postcrete into the run, after I'm sure there are no youngsters still in there.

We've only seen a couple of badgers in the 16 years we've been here, but we know they're active in the area because of their trade-mark droppings. Foxes seen regularly, as I said. I have one of those wild-life cameras that are motion-activated and will work at night, that I occasionally set up in the garden to observe nocturnal visitors, and on a couple of occasions it's photographed a fox passing through on a regular path.

After scraps maybe, or nuts from a bird feeder perhaps?

Reply to
Chris Hogg

I don't think I've /ever/ seen a live badger.

Reply to
Andy Burns

We're suburban, and I have seen - in broad daylight - a fox stroll past my window on the path immediate outside (5m from the boundary); and the same fox walk down the middle of the road on a Saturday afternoon.

Talk about "I own the place" !

A couple of years ago, we had a knock on the door. It was our local PCSO, who asked if we had heard/noticed anything unusual last night. We hadn't, but were told a near neighbours chickens (we had no idea they kept them) had all been stolen. I rather riled the PCSO by suggesting it was foxes rather than a local crime syndicate. Apparently the lack of all chickens was the telltale clue. Slightly less credulous, I did some research (asked some chicken keeping friends) and my theory was confirmed ... foxes have been known to empty a coop without leaving a single feather.

Sometimes at night we hear foxes mating - it is an unpleasant sound.

Reply to
Jethro_uk

Before DNA analysis, a researcher was convinced that dogs were descended from foxes. They bred foxes for dog-like traits and within 20 generations had floppy-eared waggy-tailed foxes that interacted like dogs with humans.

Which is curious because the advent of DNA analysis proves that dogs are wolves - completely different genus.

Reply to
Jethro_uk

We have wild boar round here in Warwickshire and also in the Forest of Dean

Jonathan

Reply to
Jonathan

I live on the edge of an urban area and have had a fox dozing in the back garden, in an area caught by the sun, after a heavy frost several times but haven't seen it for a while so perhaps one of my neighbours has secured the gap in their fence that it got through. Late one evening a few years ago I saw a badger trotting down the road next to mine. I knew they were in the area but don't know where the sett is. The last time I had a hedgehog in the garden, that I know about, it had a broken leg so I sent for hedgehog rescue.

Reply to
Peter Johnson

Foxes we see vary. Some look very healthy with thick bushy coats and tails. Others look very scrawny and probably have sarcoptic mange.

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Reply to
Chris Hogg

You don't have to rear generation after generation of foxes to domesticate them. Foxes can be domesticated if reared from very young cubs in a domestic environment, but they do have a very pungent odour.

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Reply to
Chris Hogg

A few years ago, I saw a dead badger by the roadside not far from where we live. It intrigued me badgers might be living a few hundred metres from a suburb.

Then I read that a lot of badger corpses are dumped by the scum that indulge in badger baiting :(

Reply to
Jethro_uk

well perhaps so and perhaps not. Ther are a LOT of badgers who are living in close proximity to humans

'side of the road' is not the first place one chooses to dump a dead badger.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I take it you called it in to the local authority for them to come and pick up?

Reply to
Tim Streater

My wife's cousin in Herefordshire hates the damage they do to his property.

I buy wild boar sausages occasionally, to do my bit to help keep them culled.

Reply to
Davey

On the contrary, it is one of the first places for plausible deniability. Which is one reason local authorities ask to be told of badger corpses, though I think epidemiological research is also relevant. There is a rumour that farmers who, through some mischance, have inadvertently killed a badger may dump them on the road to avoid admitting to their carelessness.

Reply to
Roger Hayter

No, as at the time I was unaware of the situation :(

I would if I saw one again.

Reply to
Jethro_uk

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