A fox paying a visit early this morning

Helena came upstairs holding her phone and while showing me her screen she said there is a fox in the garden. I got out of bed and went next door to my study and peered out of the window. There she/he was lying down very calmly quite relaxed and apparently with no concerns. I moved to my desk to find my little camera, which has no zoom unfortunately. By the time I returned to the window Helena had gone back downstairs and then the fox heard something.

I slowly looked through the lens and managed to grab a couple of snaps as the fox had started to get up, though not apparently too scared. After I took this picture it turned and walked down the steps into the garden and ambled off to the bottom of the garden.

We are rather pleased. We hear foxes at night but I haven’t seen one in the garden for some months. I’ve never seen one sitting peacefully and certainly not close to the house. We don’t feed them or the badgers which also come into the garden. I have heard badgers at night and looked out of the patio doors, and found the snout of badger inches from the door looking up at me. What a treat.