Foxes and Wild Flowers

Since seeing the vixen ambling through the field with her cub following close behind her (7 days ago) I have twice seen a fox cub alone in our garden and wondered if it is the same one. Both times he has looked a bit lost and confused but he is probably old enough to look after himself and he already seems to have learnt that there are often scraps to be found under the hanging bird tray. No sign of the vixen though, so I went for a walk down the valley to where I have seen her sitting outside her den before. She wasn't there, so I started to look for wild flowers on the SSSI land.

This area used to be prolific in wild flowers common to chalk downland so I was pleased to see that, despite the land having been driven over by big tractors during the scrub clearance, there are still a few patches that the tractor missed and some Orchids and other flowers are coming through.

Common Spotted Orchid




Twayblade Orchid




Vetch

Campion

Lucky Escape

Poor sad and lonely male pheasant had a very narrow escape last night. I was watching him busily grubbing around the base of the cob nut tree when I noticed a movement the other side of the sheep netting and there was the young fox just making his way into the garden. I was in a bit of a predicament as the pheasant was between me and the fox so if I made too much of a sudden movement it would chase him right into the waiting jaws of the fox. Luckily the fox caught sight of me at the window and ran out of the garden so male phes lives for another day but was this what happened to the female phes I wonder.

Later that evening the same young fox was sitting in the field staring at something near the woods so I got my binoculars to see what it was and there ambling along was a vixen with cub trotting behind. Maybe the young fox was her cub from last year.

We kept hens for about 10 years or so and in all that time only two were caught by foxes. One was lost in a daylight raid and the other was caught at night the one and only time in the whole 10 years I forgot to shut the hen house door. Luckily the dog barked and woke us up and we all ran down the garden screaming (don't know what the neighbours thought!) but the fox took fright, dropped the hen and turned tail out of the garden. After a clever bit of stitch work by the vet and a months recuperation in my daughters bedroom, henny, thankfully was as good as new.

I still like foxes though and think that not enough is said about their uses in the countryside. Some years ago when the farmer first started with sheep he killed of all the local foxes. This caused an explosion of rabbits in his wheat fields (there were literally hundreds) and an explosion in rats and mice. Needless to say the farmer has never totally wiped out the fox population again.