It's been an age since I updated, but the foxy activity in the yard continues apace. We've just come out of mating season, and that was highly dramatic. I had a resident pair through most of January (christened Tip and Tess):
This is the pair in a light snowfall, recorded on trailcam #2. The big flash of light is from trailcam #3.
Tess, pausing in front of Cam 2 early one morning.
Tip and Tess had the yard to themselves for a few weeks, but in February a good-sized fox with a lame leg started horning in on the territory. After some exciting displays and some outright fights, Gimpy chased Tip and Tess away, and the exciting footage was caught on Cam 3:
Triple Fox Steeplechase.
Gimpy took over the yard in a big way. I got video after video of him patrolling the yard and marking his territory - he seemed to be everywhere. It wasn't until I got footage of him with another fox that I realized he had a mate, and that she was so similar to him in build and fur growth that I'd been mistaking Friend for Gimpy. They both continued to prowl the yard, eat all the food and mark territory, so that often the yard reeked of fox.
Other foxes would sneak in on occasion, all of them displaying fur loss from mange, which was unfortunate but made them easy to identify. This is Bite Mark, who's got a distinctive bare patch over the left hip:
Other visitors include Rat Tail (missing most of the fur on the tail), Q-Tip (missing most of the fur on the tail except for a big puff at the very end) and Dark Lady, who also has fur loss at the tail but is distinguishable mostly because she's so much darker than the others.
And yes, I called her "she." Now that mating season is over, it's become obvious that every single fox except Gimpy is female, and EXPECTING. I'm beginning to wonder if there's a dearth of male foxes this season - foxes can be monogamous, but they can also be polygamous if the females outnumber the males. It would be too weird if Gimpy was the baby daddy to all these pregnant ladies, but he does seem more tolerant of them, whereas Friend will attack the other gals given the chance. Here's
Bite Mark getting schooled.
So...I'm braced (actually hoping for) an onslaught of kits come mid- to late April.
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