Foxes

Vixens Relaxing together – A Close Encounter

Foxes

This is one of the many special encounters with the local foxes that I have experienced in recent years, and this special reunion was one of several highlights of 2022…

Vixens Patch and Vicky are not related, but were both cubs in 2020 when I first got to know them, during the covid lockdown exercise periods. There were two pairs of cubs in total, and spending time with them meant getting up very early on bright or sunny days and trudging about, which was a wonderful antidote to the emotional and psychological pressures that we all faced during the early days of the pandemic. Many people became more aware of how theraputic it is to reconnect with the natural world and the wildlife around us, especially in urban areas, and it really helped me keep a positive mental attitude during those challenging times.

I feel very privileged that as they have grown up, these two vixens have allowed me to watch their cubs grow up over the last couple of years, and they have given me hours of pleasure observing and photographing their behaviour and social interactions. I may not see either of them for days or weeks, but they do seem to look out for each other on the rare occasions that I do see them together. The dog foxes often move on, and many cubs do not survive, unfortunately, but I do see some of them too sometimes.

These photos were taken early one August morning, when they were both happy to share some time with me, showing me complete trust as usual while I laid next to them trying to keep as low as possible, struggling to keep the hand-held camera steady. I was enjoying just being with them for a while, and as they were so close I didn’t want to spoil the vibe, but of course before long I couldn’t resist the risk of taking a few photo’s, despite the messy background and tatty cardboard, because they looked so lovely together!

The following video probably gives a better idea of what it was like to spend several minutes just hanging out together, before Patch got bored and wandered off, saying goodbye to Vicky on the way, a wonderful intimate moment!

Foxes are intelligent and have complicated family interactions and very different personalities. I always give them space and let them come to me if they want to, and I don’t feed them by hand. However, they know I regularly put food and fruit out for the birds, and nuts for the squirrels, and they are partial to a peanut or two, and of course, very inquisitive. They are also partial to umpteen gardening gloves, several gardening bag handles, my camera strap… oh and one of them bit a neat hole in an iphone screen, which surprisingly kept on going for several days before finally refusing to work!

Snow Seen

Birds, Foxes

Winter weather reduces the amount of daylight hours for outdoor photography, but it’s often worth wrapping up well and going out into the freezing cold to try and capture some of the magical transformations that occur on the rare occasions that it snows. I was drawn out of the front door by the recent proper snowfall for ages, and spent a couple of hours with the camera and the challenge of hoping to capture some of that atmosphere…

Snowy scenes usually trick the exposure meters in cameras, which expect an ‘average’ amount of light, so they usually need some positive exposure to compensate. However, if overexposed, any detail in the snow is lost, so it really helps to shoot in RAW file format to preserve all the details, which can be recovered when processed on a computer.

Heston Nature Garden in snowfall

This was taken out of my window, in an attempt to capture the beauty of the trees when covered in snow. It is a manual composite of four RAW exposures from -1.5ev to +1.5ev in order to compensate for the huge difference in light levels from the top of the image to the bottom without blowing out the details of the snow at the top or losing details in the shadows in the lower part.

High Rise Living

Once actually out of the front door, I noticed the way the windows of Pitman House and the branches of the big plane tree were diagonally opposite, and I liked the symbolism of man-made structure vs nature, but both providing shelter from the cold, with the matching warmer colours of the leaves and the bricks.

A Glow in the Snow

Taken from the top balcony of Heston House, this shows how prominent the murel by Artmongers, painted on the back of Addey and Stanhope School, is for local residents, especially in Heald Street and Florence Terrace. The murel project, which involved the students at the school, was controversial, but went ahead despite several residents objecting. However, its colours makes a great contrast to the almost monochrome snowy surroundings.

Snowy Sentinels

When I came across these snow-blobs on the wall of the top balcony of Heston House, they really made me smile, but trying to include them in an interesting way in an image proved to be a challenge, but I couldn’t help feel that they were looking across frozen Deptford in disdain at the contrast in living standards to those who frequent the Canary Wharf towers in the distance. The blue blob just left of centre is the above mural 🙂

Footprints In The Snow 1

Guess who’s been active in the garden!

Footprints In The Snow 2

Robin the robin

Robin came to greet me as soon as I entered Heston Nature Garden, singing a beautiful welcome, hoping for some fresh mealworms, probably! Robin has been in this garden since 2017 at least, and is recognisable by the missing claw on the left foot.

Do monkeys like fox nuts too?

Sammy the young dog fox is a cub from this year, who is wary, but knows me well, and has found a monkey nut that I put out for the squirrels. I’ve seen foxes cache individual peanuts in the past, so they must value their nutritional value as well as their taste.

What time is dinner served?

Here’s Sammy again, by the bird table. Several local foxes pass through the garden regularly, but I avoid feeding them directly, because I don’t want them to get too familiar with humans, as they are wild animals and should be treated as such, as that is part of their beauty. However, they are intelligent and inquisitive social animals, so they have got to know me from feeding the birds and squirrels and cleaning out the water bowls nearly every day, and I have got to know some of them quite well, and occasionally even manage to get a chance to take a photo.

I had hoped to get a rare fox-in-the snow pic, but this is the nearest I got on this occasion. However, I like to get some wider angle ‘environment’ shots of foxes for a change, and liked the yellow/brown silver birch leaves in the foreground with surrounding ivy and dusting of snow in the background, as well as the customer waiting for the ‘Victuallers of Distinction’ to open for service!

This is just a few of the images taken that I liked the look of, I hope you enjoyed my mini-tour of the snowy outdoors, and would be interested in your feedback. If positive, It would encourage me to process some more of the images to add to this post…

2020 – How Wildlife Photography helped me cope with the arrival of the Covid Pandemic

Foxes
Vixen through a vignette of a gate sitting amongst wild plants looking to her right, looking like she's smiling
What a Sweetie!

I consider myself to be very lucky that I was not badly affected by the onset of the Covid virus, especially during the first lockdown, as I know how much of a dramatic change it made to so many people’s lives.

At the time, I had been helping to manage a community wildlife garden in London for around ten years, after having had a year of unpleasant treatment for health conditions, I have found that photographing its residents and documenting its progress has contributed so much to my mental and physical health recovery and sense of well-being, that wildlife photography has become my life-line.

Fox surrounded by ivy and nettles looking up at me at my first floor window
Look who’s come to say Hello! View from My first floor window into the garden

The community garden had to be closed to the public and human residents during lockdown, but the birds, squirrels and foxes, insects and plants needed feeding, care and attention, and so I combined this with my daily exercise routine, which provided the motivation to take advantage of the sudden peace that had enveloped us…

Our Nature Garden sits in the middle of blocks of flats in Deptford, not far from the A2/A20, near a railway line and on the flight path to Heathrow, so the change in noise levels was dramatic. The sound of birdsong and the wind rustling in the trees became the dominant sound, which provided a soothing background for the inhabitants of the 80 flats that overlook the garden. It gave me a great sense of peace and belonging, and of tranquility.

Dog fox sniffing the leg of a Vixen on tarmac path lit by a low sun with a shady background of Ivy
Hello!

The local foxes pass through our garden, but they find their own boundaries between gardens, railway lines and roads, but as I have become increasingly fascinated by the ones which I have seen passing through, I decided to use some of my exercise time to see if I could exercise my growing interest in fieldcraft, and see if I could find out more about them, to help to protect them and see that they were healthy.

I had seen a dog fox and vixen in our garden on a lovely Autumn day the previous year, and had got the best foxy images yet because it was still sunny, so I decided I would need to get up really early and look around as the sun came up and before they went to sleep. Not a pleasant thought for a night owl, but I was shielding three vulnerable people as well as myself, so going out when it was deserted made sense, so I had no excuse! Any fox photos in good light would be a good result, because it helps me keep a record of the markings of individual foxes, and to check for injuries or mange. However, my ultimate hope was that I might be able to see a cub and perhaps even get a photo, but I thought it unlikely because they would be somewhere safe and well-hidden.

Fox next to vixen with heads crossing, eye to eye, on path of lit up autumn leaves
Foxy Bonding

My hard work and regular daily feeding of the birds in the garden had given me a head start, because some of the foxes had got used to me putting down peanuts for the squirrels, and were helping themselves, so they got to know that I wasn’t a threat. So early one May morning after having spent the night on the computer editing photos, having noticed that a lovely sunrise was happening outside my front door, I hurredly togged up and ventured out into the cold…

Would you like to know how I got on?

Please leave a comment, and let me know.