PHOTOGRAPH BY KAREN ANNE KOLLING
FROM THE GONZO DECK OF KAREN ANNE KOLLING IN RI--
Hi,
My cousin Muriel from next door tells me my cousin Bev who lives five houses down the street has seen a baby fox, which she at first thought was a cat :-) I am hoping I might see the baby fox at some point, needless to say.
This seems to mean that baby foxes are produced when it is still quite cold out; we've still had a couple of days this past week or two when it got below freezing at night, although it was "working in the garden" weather yesterday. The crocus and now daffodils are blooming here.
The fox was on the deck eating peanuts for just a minute or two just now, and then bolted away, and a moment later I saw my cousin walking her little dog in what is traditionally our mutual yard, since our families have owned both houses since they were built in the 1920s. The fox gives the dog a wide berth. I wonder if I can convince Muriel to walk the dog at other than the fox's usual appearance time:-)
It seems that the baby fox was by himself when Bev saw him. I wonder how far from the den he goes and how much his Mom supervises him.
It appears that my deck visiting fox is female. I've been emailing photos to my friend who is a vet, and that's what he thinks, so I'm referring to the baby fox as he out of gender equal opportunityism and to prevent confusion. If the deck fox is the Mom, I certainly haven't seen her being noticeably pregnant, and, assuming this is the same fox all the time, I first saw her at the beginning of March.
As there is a kit, you might have seen the male, when he was allowed in her territory. But I'm told that the males and females tend to travel, sometimes for quite a distance, outside of territory to find a mate.
Notice the nice black coloring on her legs and ears:
PHOTOGRAPH BY KAREN ANNE KOLLING
This fearsome looking chomping is just dispatching a (shell-less) peanut. I haven't seen any grinding teeth, I wonder if foxes have them?
Foxes do have molars and at least in the fox in Denmark their teeth, in fact their whole selves, have become larger in the 20th Century.
The first molar is used to grind grains. I wonder if that includes peanut chomping?
From Evolutionary Ecology Research, 2003, 5: 1037–1048
PHOTOGRAPH BY KAREN ANNE KOLLING
Here's her sweet face –
She is a beauty.
PHOTOGRAPH BY KAREN ANNE KOLLING
This was supposed to be a nice photo of Mr. and Mrs.Cardinal, but Mr. Cardinal (red blur in background) had other ideas -
Well Karen when it happens to me, to salve my disappointment, I decide it's either documentation--or art.
SCREEN CAPTURE COURTESY OF FRIENDS OF BLACKWATER EAGLES
FROM ROBIN OF ILLINOIS--
The Blackwater eaglets begin to try their wings.
FROM OUR GLEANER OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, WILLIAM WALTERS--
OPINION
FROM OUR GLEANER OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, WILLIAM WALTERS--
OPINION
April 13, 2009
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Why it is so difficult to accept the removal of the gray wolf from the endangered species list in Idaho and Montana.
Donegal Browne
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