One of the best things about my change of abode earlier this year is the wildlife I now see in the garden, the occasional rare bird as well as the more common species and, best of all, the Foxes. I’ve blogged about them twice, views of the whole family in Foxes in the garden!, on 25 June, and the male and female adults reinforcing their pair bond in Amorous Foxes, on 7 October.

The photo above was taken more recently, on 10 November, when the local Magpies were playing chicken with the Fox, a game I’ve seen them play a few times. The birds hop as close as they dare to the Fox, it watches them and sometimes pretends to move towards them, making them fly off. There seems no real menace in the Fox’s expression but I’m sure it wouldn’t turn down a Magpie meal if it got the chance.

I’d been told by a couple of other flat owners that we have Foxes living in the woodland that borders one side of the communal garden where I now live, but I’d also been told that they are rarely seen, and the sightings are mostly late at night by those who live on the street side of the building, presumably as they’re venturing out into the town searching for food – the Foxes not the flat owners!

So, you can imagine my excitement and amazement and total delight when I looked out my window early one morning last week to see a whole family of Foxes frolicking together in the garden. From the look of them and the way they were interacting, I assume these are the male and female adults and two young cubs.

I watched them for perhaps 10 minutes before something alarmed them and the group quickly disappeared through a gap between the grass and the trees. But, within five minutes, they were out again, the adults sniffing warily around the garden edges, the youngsters climbing all over each other play-fighting. Once again, they withdrew after 10-15 minutes – I guess more people were up and about by then, pulling back curtains, opening windows, and that type of activity sent the Foxes back to the safety of their den for the day.

Even more surprisingly, I saw one of the adults just as it was getting dark the following evening, heading purposefully along the edge of the trees, heading out into the urban landscape to forage for scraps. It may even be that people locally feed them, as, fortunately, growing numbers of people are now happy to share our towns and cities with these handsome creatures.