I don’t know why this Carrion crow died. It certainly wasn’t the Fox that killed it; it may just have been natural causes. I was alerted to its presence, laying by the woodland edge below my window (I live on the second level of our building, on a steeply sloping site, so I was essentially looking straight down at this scene), by the local Magpies making a lot of noise. Half a dozen of them were standing around the crow, squawking loudly, hopping a little closer, then hopping away again. After about 5 minutes, they seemed to reach a consensus that the crow was dead, and they all flew off to their respective parts of the garden (they’ve paired up now and each pair seems to have established its own territory within the grounds).

Later, in the evening, Mr Fox found the crow and it was interesting to watch his behaviour. He was very gentle, sniffed and nuzzled the bird a few times, presumably making sure it was dead, then sprayed it twice, from different angles, with urine, before trotting off. I’ve since read that this is quite normal behaviour for Foxes; they will spray their prey to mark it as theirs, so that other Foxes leave it alone. The next morning the crow was gone, presumably retrieved by the Fox sometime during the night or in the early morning on its way back to the den.