Yes, migration!

I've moved my blog to the Opera Community. Please visit me there - it's very active and friendly!

Wounds, Bugs, Migration

The Fringe Vixen has acquired another nasty wound - this time on her flank. A bite from another fox or a gouge from a barbed wire fence or a hedge?



I suspect she is chewing it, regardless of its origin, as it seems to be expanding. It is clearly visible in this picture.

The Old Dogfox came earlier this evening and looked fine. No sign of the Survivor Vixen so far tonight.

On a smaller note (though huge by British insect standards) I was surprised by a devil's coach horse when out walking my dog yesterday. I'm a mite puzzled as they're supposed to be about 28mm in length, and this fellow was nearer 2.8 inches. When it detected me, it flipped the tip of its abdomen over, a warning not to disturb further.



Apparently their wider family is known as cocktails for this trait, and they can expel a nasty brown liquid as well as give a good bite. But I was careful not to upset it, and no harm done to me or my dog...

The migration part of this post title involves my move to an Opera blog. I've nothing against Blogspot, except that loading pictures can be rather slow, but Opera seem to offer a better all round blogging package. So, starting from this post (which is on there in an amended form!) I am officially migrating. My main site shall, of course, remain at www.thesittingfox.co.uk.

The Sittingfox Opera Blog

Some migrating wildebeest in the Serengeti, back in 1996.

That page didn't last long

This morning appeared perfect - sunny, AND a Saturday! Unfortunately camera's battery went flat, which delayed my hunt for autumn yet again, but everything worked out just fine in the end. But the upshot is that I've moved my Autumn Photo Network album to here, for easier viewing.



Now, time for some fox updates.

In truth it's been pretty quiet, with just the Fringe Vixen and the Old Dogfox attending most nights. However, the Survivor Vixen paid us a welcome visit late last week. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a photo of her but she looks amazing. All her fur has grown back. It shows how fur gives the illusion of increased size. We know she is tiny - probably the runt of her litter - but she looks a much more respectable bulk now!

There's been no sign of the Interloper, or of the kits / cubs whom I occasionally meet in a nearby residential road. The weather has not been very charitable and I've seen few mammals either in the garden or in the wider area. Forests are so rich in food during the autumn that there's little incentive to forage elsewhere.

Autumn Colours, Strange Colours

A number of bloggers from Opera have started the Autumn Photo Network. This excellent idea asks bloggers from all over the world to chronicle the changing seasons. Unfortunately, the weather here in the North Downs hasn't been particularly kind to photography lately so I haven't yet contributed much, just some pictures from previous, sunnier autumns. I felt distinctly New England-ish when taking this one.

You can find my own autumn page (strictly a work in progress!) here.



I've also put my photo of an albino squirrel gathering conkers (nuts of the horse chestnut tree) on there, but because white squirrels often excite interest I thought it perhaps worth a little extra explanation. In October 2005, a magnificent albino squirrel began to be sighted frequently in a local wooded lane. I duly went down there with my heavy tripod and my Canon DSLR, and waited, and waited, and then some...

I saw the squirrel without any trouble at all. But wildlife photography isn't simply a matter of turning up and point-and-click (well, not usually anyhow). The squirrel, albino or not, liked scaling trees, and persuading a camera to focus on the animal and not a branch in the foreground is no mean feat when you have only a few seconds before said animal decides to move again. Also, the shady environment meant slow shutter speeds, unless I compensated, which meant a huge risk of camera shake.

To cut the story short, I eventually saw the squirrel perched on a fence with a conker in his mouth, and was able to take advantage. Curiously I saw a grey squirrel in a near-identical pose on the same day. There was no aggression towards the albino from his normal-coloured kin, at least no more than is usual for this, well, high-spirited species.



What causes albinism? It is, of course, the lack of pigment; the squirrel did not technically have white fur, just no colour at all. Melanism is the opposite and is commonly found in wolves, like this female I saw in the Rockies in 2003.



To produce offspring with either of these pigment variations, both parents must carry the relevent gene. A squirrel can carry the albinism gene and still be grey, but if it mates with another carrier, then the kit might be white. Sadly, in zoos this leads to some very unethical practices (for example, mating closely related tigers in the hope of producing the hugely popular - if meaningless to conservation - white cubs).

But colour phases occur all over the wild quite naturally, though some populations show more tendencies than others. And seeing a natural colour phase is always exciting. Foxes are very rarely albino, but in some parts of the world are quite often melanistic. They can even be red with black chests - I did see one of those locally, many years ago. I hope I will dig up the video footage soon. In the meantime, here's another picture of the squirrel.

Mr and Mrs?

This could be a case of inferring unwarranted conclusions from a dubious photo. The Fringe Vixen and the Old Dogfox sitting side by side under the conifer tree look very like an established pair, until you realise that both were simply making use of the best shelter from rain the garden provides!

In fact I'm sure that they will be the breeding pair next season. Takahe hasn't visited in a couple of months and the Interloper seems in no state to challenge the Old Dogfox. Nevertheless, I'm somewhat grateful to the rain for cordoning them into a good spot for photos.



And here's another picture of Leila the Leonberger eyeing the foxes. Yes, she is as big as all that. I met a Newfoundland on a station platform last week who seemed positively normal-sized in comparison.

Kitting out for Winter

Although frost has yet to bite and frogs are still hopping about (even if the daddy-long-legs plague has finally subsided!) the foxes are well advanced in growing their winter coats. They are a fine sight now; it's a shame, in some respects, that we haven't got any snow to frame them against.

I took this picture of the Fringe Vixen this evening. Apart from a wound of unknown origin on her back, she is looking absolutely splendid.



See how thick her brush is! Presumably, if climate change does involve Britain developing painfully cold winters (by upsetting the gulf stream, as some have suggested) foxes will be one of the species least affected. They are supremely adaptable. As for the butterflies, migratory birds and sensitive mammals like caribou - well, their outlook is not quite so attractive.

In other fox news, I had a fascinating little encounter on a nearby residential road earlier this week. A fox (quite possibly one of Takahe's cubs) sauntered out from a garden, closely followed by an animal of similar size. Naturally, I thought at first that it was another fox, but on closer inspection it was a rather rotund moggy. For a few seconds fox and cat stood in the road together, the cat eying up the fox but the latter not reacting at all. Then the cat retreated back to its garden, and the fox trotted after it.

I've seen many fox / cat interactions over the years, and supreme indifference seems the order of the day. Although cats can inflict fatal injuries on foxes, and to be honest I'm not a fan of letting them loose without proper supervision (for the sake of more vulnerable wildlife, and for the cat itself - cars, dogs, thugs with airguns, and feline HIV are all out there), a passive truce seems to exist between the feline and vulpine worlds. Sometimes they can even be seen foraging together!

Hiding from the Night

The Interloper is appearing more and more often in the mornings, sometimes staying as late as 10am. It is almost certainly a strategy to avoid the Old Dogfox, and raises some interesting questions of the behavioural ecology kind. Is territory temporal as well as spatial?

Presumably, not all hours are equal when it comes to avoiding humans and finding food. As the most dominant fox, the Old Dogfox would have first choice - as we know, he comes principally 8pm - 9pm.

There must be significant survival advantages to the Interloper avoiding the Old Dogfox if he is making an effort, day after day, to come during daylight. This short video gives a clue as to his motivation (there's also a few seconds of the Fringe Vixen right at the very end):



What amazed me was the sheer length of time that the Interloper spent crouching in submission. He seems afraid to relax at all in the Old Dogfox's presence. In contrast, these photos from this morning show him sitting up straight and calm.