A bit of family history ..

I decided that instead of just blipping 'yet another' fox blip (and fox photos are all I have today!), I'd fill in a bit of background.

So here we have, from L to R, Clint, Sweetpea and Auntie.

Clint only arrived a couple of weeks ago - he's very bold and comes hurtling towards the house when he hears the back door, though slams on the brakes when he gets ten or fifteen feet away. Recently he's been arriving with Auntie, and I've seen her grooming him, so maybe they'll produce babies next year. He's a bit mean at feeding time, not allowing anyone to get anything even if I throw dog sausages (made FOR dogs, not FROM dogs!) which he doesn't even like!

Sweetpea first appeared last winter. Well - I say 'appeared' - Sweetpea mainly lived underneath the pampas grass. If I threw food at the base of the pampas a little nose would dart out and grab it and quickly disappear. I only once caught sight of him and saw that he had a very badly damaged face and eye. A bad photo of him is here. I was so surprised when I realised that one of the new boys was little Sweetpea - all his fur has regrown, though if you look very closely you can see his face is still slightly misshapen under the fur, and his eye is a little damaged - but he's lovely and likes to curl up on the rockery by the house and have a snooze!

Auntie is one of the two vixens that seem to live here permanently (fox families disperse in the autumn - most of the summer's cubs going off to new territories, though one or two may remain to help raise the following year's cubs) Two years ago Auntie help raise and suckle Mama's cubs - but last year she had a litter of her own (much later than Mama's litter - I was quite shocked when I first saw the tiny new cubs appearing in the garden!) Mama and Auntie suckled each other's cubs - and all the foxy family will groom and babysit the babies (and discipline them!)

Foxes are the most loving, family oriented animals you could imagine!