Now, of course, my brain has gone on strike and I don’t have a spark of blogging inspiration, so I thought I would simply share with you a still from DH’s video of the fox that came to visit us this time last year. From the vantage point of the bathroom window which looks down over the former farmyard and the fields below, he filmed the fox as it wandered from field to garden and back in search of possible prey. We may have no near human neighbours here in Wales, but nature is all around us.
A lovely photo. Best wishes for your forthcoming surgery.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Molly. The video camera is one of DH's favourite toys as it has a fantastic zoom facility. That fox was at least 50 metres away.
DeleteHe looks really bright eyed and bushy tailed, so many of them seem to get that awful mange.
ReplyDeleteThe indecision is worse - you must feel much more comfortable having made your decision. All of the very best when the call comes.
I think they find healthier food in the countryside, rather than foraging in dustbins as they do in urban areas. Of course we don't usually see them in such close-up.
DeleteYou're so right about indecision and uncertainty being hard to cope with. My decision is basically made and my mind is much clearer, if inspiration-free. :-) Thanks for the good wishes.
What a beauty, Very different from the one I photographed through a window in the back door a few weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteMine was much skinnier, and of course, the photographer far less skilled, I can't pretend I like them too close at hand but they are really lovely looking beasts.
I've just been back and checked when the photo was taken and my memory has played tricks on me. It wasn't recent at all, but this time last year (!) after a much milder winter. I think all wildlife has had a hard time of it this winter, but urban foxes really are scavengers, not hunters and probably not as healthy.
DeleteI will pass the compliment on to DH, who is a much better photographer than me.
Dear Perpetua, foxes always look so intelligent to me. So ready to face life. They are one of my favorite animals. Thank for sharing this photo of a truly discerning fox. She came to your back yard didn't she!!!!! Peace.
ReplyDeleteEven though I once lost some of my beloved chickens to a fox, I still have a deep admiration for their resourcefulness and adaptability, Dee. As Ray says in her comment above, they are such handsome creatures and so much part of our natural world, inside and outside the garden. :-)
DeleteHe is a fine looking fellow. Best wishes for the surgery.
ReplyDeleteVery handsome indeed, especially in this portrait shot. Thanks for the good wishes.
DeleteThat is a healthy looking fox. DH has an outdoor wildlife camera that you strap to a tree. I bought it for him one Christmas from National Geographic. It can take night shots as well as day and comes up with some interesting pictures of nightlife out by the creek. Living out where you do, you would definitely see more critters than we do here in suburbs of Dallas...
ReplyDeleteA very fine specimen and it's love to see him or her in such detail. I'll pass your reply on to DH who might well be interested in acquiring another new toy. :-) If he did take the pluinge, we might well get definitive proof that there are still badgers in a couple of setts up our lane as we never manage to see them in person. Not sure exactly what lives in British suburbs, but foxes have certainly colonised urban areas here.
DeleteWe never see foxes here, though they are in Australia (imported). That is a beautiful looking animal, and what a lovely tail. Too bad they are always portrayed as the bad guy in the fairytales! Good luck with your surgery.
ReplyDeleteI presume the foxes were imported to try to deal with the rabbit plague. I just hope they are part of the solution rather than another problem in themselves, like escaped mink in Britain. Now you mention it foxes and wolves both get a very bad press in fairytales, just for doing what comes naturally to them. Thanks for the good wishes.
DeleteA lovely picture, Perpetua. I'm thinking of you and hope that all will go well with your surgery and your recovery. Best wishes for a quick and full recovery!
ReplyDeleteIt's great, isn't it, Kathy? Your good wishes are much appreciated, as I don't know how long the wait for surgery will be and I find waiting the hardest bit. Once I've decided I always want't to get on with things. :-)
DeleteHe's an amazing beauty, Perpetua! What a splendid animal. I think your brain just got tired out, don't you? It's needing a rest. I hope you find peaceful and quiet things to occupy the time while you wait for the surgery. It will go well and you'll be a new person with all that clear vision. :-) oxo
ReplyDeleteI love the alertness in his posture and expression. I hope he's still around somewhere after this year's harder winter. I'm sure your''re right that my brain is just tried of thinking and is taking time out, Debra. This past couple of weeks I've been doing a lot of knitting in front of the TV and have almost finished a whole pair of socks in a fortnight! At this rate I'll have a cottage industry going. :-)
DeleteHe's a very classy fox. Makes me think of Roald Dahl's story "Fantastic Mr Fox". SHame so many of them get ill, have fleas and rabies.... best admired from a distance, hey?
ReplyDeleteGlad you're set and decided. Have a great Sunday!
That's where I've seen him before, MM. :-) He really did seem to be in the peak of condition, though he was still probably riddled with fleas. Luckily rabies isn't one of the diseases he would have to contend with here, but I'm sure there are others.
DeleteYes, I've decided and feel much better for having done so. This Sunday is special as the sun is shining at last!
What a super fox! We've only seen a fox here once or twice.
ReplyDeleteBack when we lived in Suffolk our neighbour opposite [getting up v early one morning] was fascinated to see a fox sniffing round our front door. She was just about to go and try and find her camera when she was astonished to see our cat Shadow [who is not the largest tom in the world] appear down the street, fluff himself up, charge down the drive to the door and go for the fox [which was considerably larger and well fed]!! The fox shot off at top speed.
Yes, he'a a beauty. We don't see them very often here either, unless as a sad little corpse at the edge of the road as with the badgers. I used to see them quite regularly early in the morning as I drove to work, but being a lazy retired person nowadays, I'm not often out and about at that time of morning. :-)
DeleteI love the story of Shadow defending his home and people from the marauding fox. Cats can be really fierce when provoked as I know to my cost and it sounds like the fox had prior experience of that fact.
Best to plan a big project to be achieved after surgery; focusing on something other than your surgery will help you channel your energy and stay positive and collected. After all, our bodies are guided by our emotional outlook.
ReplyDeleteWhat a good idea! We have a number of things which need doing here at home in Wales and of course not being able to travel as we usually do in the warmer months gives us more opportunity to plan and carry out some of them. I shall have to put my thinking cap on.... :-)
DeleteAh, what a beauty, Perpetua. We have fox here as well. While they are rather elusive, when they do make appearances I am all agog, like a child, hopping about to get a better look. We have enough small animals around for them, so they are quite stout. DH did a good job capturing your visitor.
ReplyDeleteFirst the decision, then the wait. As the saying goes, "hang in there", dear one. I had a few audio books waiting after both of my cataract surgeries, which helped past the time when reading a book had to wait. I also did a post after the first one, just a few days later. In case you are interested, it is at lifeonthecutoff.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/old-enough/. It is mostly about my grandmother, Yia Yia, and how she was deemed too old to have the surgery in 1958.
Thinking about you.
We were so glad to have been looking out of the window when he roamed into the garden from the field, Penny. DH rushed for his video camera and give me the best shot as a still. There are plenty of foxes around, but they rarely show themsel;ves when we're there to see them.
DeleteThank you so much for the tip about audio books (which I can borrow from our local library) and for the link, which is from well before I found your blog. It's so encouraging to see how soon you were able to do things and this highlights just how far cataract surgery has come from the days when your poor grandmother was considered too old for it at 68.
I can imagine that now you have decided on surgery, you can think of nothing else. Hope the wait isn't too long.
ReplyDeleteProbably a couple of months if all goes well. The time will soon pass, now I've reached the age when entire weeks vanish without my noticing them. :-) Meanwhile I have a pair of socks to knit post-haste for DD's birthday. :-)
DeleteNo foxes here on the Island that I know of - lovely white foxes in northern Alberta where we used to live. There are small coyotes here and they are vicious.
ReplyDeleteBeing in a fox-free zone would have been be great for other creatures if it weren't for the coyotes, but I suppose every ecological area needs its predators. White foxes sound so beautiful and I'm assuming the colouring is because of the hard winters there. I really must do some googling on Canadian wildlife....
DeleteIt's always a joy to me to see a fox though they are getting rather bad press at the moment.
ReplyDeleteI think whenever there's a big thing ahead, it's hard to keep one's blogging head on....my brain is also full of other things too and we're waiting for the go ahead to move house.
Hope you get the call soon and that all goes absolutely as well as it can. Axxx
I've always liked them too, Annie, and I'm guessing the bad press is because they have moved into urban areas and become scavengers and opportunistic attackers.
DeleteGosh, if anyone has a reason to find their brain otherwise occupied it's you at the moment. Moving house is such a big thing and it sounds like it's all happening very fast. I can't wait to see more photos of the new Casa Annie. :-)
Thanks for the good wishes. I'm now taking the attitude that the call will come when it comes....
Ah yes, here you be. I suspect I need to read backwards so to speak and discover what is going on.
ReplyDeleteSorry for my unintentional absence.
Yep, still here! I'm another who can't always keep up with reading blogs when life gets busy. :-) Reading backwards is probably the quickest way to get the gist of recent developments.
DeleteI've got people entered into my WordPress reader thing, but they don't always come up. I should really just plough through my list of blogs that I visit on my roughseas pages. Would make more sense and save missing posts.
DeleteI've read that the WordPress Reader isn't very reliable, which is a shame. Though Blogger has its issues, I find Google Reader does its stuff every time, even when I don't have time to read everything it offers me.
DeleteSuch a wonderful photo of a lovely fox. The day first day I went to the cancer hospital to see an oncologist I met a fox on my way out again; sleek, intelligent and nearly tame, it passed me by then settled to sunbathe. The day I left having been discharged by my oncologist, there he was again, only the second I had seen him. Since I have seen him - or his family - a few times as I have passed that way, but foxes (and squirrels for similar reasons)have a special place in my heart.
ReplyDeleteI really hope that you cataract surgery gets sorted successfully and without too much delay. May foxes be angels for you, too!
DH really captured him well here, Catriona. Given your uncanny experience of seeing that fox on those particular occasions, I'm not at all surprised that foxes are so special to you. We sometimes need these pegs to hang our hopes on.
DeleteTwo weeks ago the consultant said that the first operation would be within 3 months, so time is passing quite nicely and I'm keeping myself busy. many thanks for the good wishes.
Fabulous creatures are foxes - and there's something about them - their adaptability, their indomitability perhaps - which endears modern folk to them , despite all the folklore to the contrary.
ReplyDeleteI guessed you'd be another fan, Mark. I admire the way they survive and learn to live to different environments such as towns, however much a pest they may be considered. And they are so beautiful.
DeleteI'm glad you've arrived at a decision...but juggling all the possibilities does take it out of one!
ReplyDeleteA superb photograph of the fox, too, though I fear I have to break the consensus and say I bear his kind too many grudges for the rotten deaths of chickens, ducks and geese over the years....
Tell me about it! All I seem to want to do now I've finished thinking things through is sit and knit to a background of undemanding TV. :-)
DeleteYes, despite their beauty foxes can be very destructive, though I don't have personal experience of the spree killing I've read about. I lost two free-range chickens to the fox, but at least I believe they were taken away and eaten as all I found was a small scatter of feathers. Killing for food I can cope with.
I think they panic when the birds start shrieking which is when the killing frenzy begins.
DeleteKilling for food is, after all, what many animals do, but the panic slaughtering is something else.
I'm sure you're right, Helen, especially when the birds are penned up and can't scatter in all directions as our free-range chickens could. I imagine in the wild foxes are glad when they can catch anything.
DeleteI'm glad you have come to a decision and hope you don't have to wait too long. Like you, I can't think of much to blog about at all at the moment. It goes like that sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI think foxes are so beautiful and that's a really lovely shot.
I think I was already halfway there when I left the consultant's office, and writing my previous blogpost and reading all the comments helped me to work through to a decision. As for blogging inspiration, it comes and it goes and it will be back for both of us before long.
DeleteIt's a wonderful shot and DH is rather proud of it. :-)
I have never seen a fox outside of a zoo. It would be a treat!
ReplyDeleteThey are still common here and becoming more so with the ban on fox-hunting. People even see them in their back gardens in town. I bet you see other wildlife which would seem very exotic to us. :-)
DeleteLovely photo of the fox and glad you've come to a decision. I've spent the last two years having eye surgery - 5 times in all including two cataract operations. My left eye is long sighted and the right is short sighted but I've come out of it not having to wear glasses now. For how long I don't know. The brain kicks in and sorts it all out. Good luck.
ReplyDeletePatricia x
Glad you like the fox, and yes, it's a great relief to have made up my mind. I knew from your blog that you'd been having eye problems, but 5 operations is a lot and I do hope you've seen the last of them now. It's very reassuring to hear how many people manage well with uneven sight and I'm feeling so much more confident about it all, thanks to my wonderful blog friends. :-)
DeleteHello Perpetua, Great fox shot! I had one strolling past my front garden not long ago. He was looking in the house as he walked by as if he was one his daily walk. As for your up coming op, I'll be thinking of you. My sister in law ( now 70) has had the same treatment and looks so much younger without the glasses. She is so pleased with the result. Hugs Sue
ReplyDeleteHow nice to see you, Sue, when you've so much else on your plate. I like your description of the fox strolling by on his daily constitutional. They don't seem to run much when I see them, but just walk calmly on their way, so that we can admire them as they go.
DeleteThanks for telling me about your sister-in-law. I am amazed at how commonplace this operation seems to have become and am so much encouraged by all the people who have had wonderful results from it.
I can admire the fox for being the magnificent creature it is, but it is also a killing machine, a perfect example of nature red in tooth and claw, and I'm afraid I'm rarely pleased to see one ... I've seen too often, at close quarters, the harm a fox can do. Foxes kill far more than they and their cubs can possibly eat ... not a few chickens but the whole coop, not one lamb but ten. The fox itself has no real natural predators. I fear we may come to regret societies current attitude to them ... maybe the writers of those fairy tales knew a thing or two!
ReplyDeleteAs I've just said above in reply to Helen's second comment, I think the huge overkill comes when foxes get among animals which are shut in and can't escape (chickens in a coop or lambs in a pen) In the wild animals and birds would scatter at the advent of a fox, not allowing the fox to catch and kill more than one at a time. Perhaps the artificiality of livestock kept in enclosed spaces is as much to blame as the fox's natural killing instinct. Just a thought....
DeleteAnyone who wants to keep their livestock safe from M. Reynard should invest in a small herd of Alpacas - they make excellent fox- and other predator-repellants, I'm told!! I love the appearance of foxes - but handsome is as handsome does, and they really are pests, and I dread to think what will happen if rabies gets into the country, which isn't beyond the bounds of probability now that there are tunnels under the Channel. I don't think that we're realistic enough about the possible dangers of uncontrolled proliferation of various forms of 'pretty' wildlife (including badgers, sadly, and those vicious little brutes, mink, who also kill for fun and not for food). Mind you, uncontrolled proliferation of the biggest predator of all - us - isn't a terribly good idea either!!
ReplyDeleteAre foxes and badgers uncontrolled, Helva? Foxes are still hunted, though not with dogs and badgers are culled. I think it would be a sad state of affairs if we were not able to share the countryside with other creatures, unless they posed no threat to our economic interests.
DeleteFoxes belong to the same biological family as foxes, one difference being that dogs are normally well-fed and have no reason to kill other than the same instinct that drives foxes to kill. I may have lost 2 chickens to foxes, but I have lost two cats to dog attacks over the years, yet I don't usually call dogs pests.
As you know, I really love cats, but they too are instinctive killers, with even the best-fed cat quite happy to hunt and kill mice and birds they don't need as food for the sheer pleasure of it. Yet we don't call them pests either.
However, I think the mink truly is a pest, but that's because the mink we always hear about is the American mink, not native to these islands and so not having its own evolved ecological niche, with all the checks and balances that involves.
I think we may have to agree to differ here. :-)
That might start a discussion, too!!
ReplyDeleteI think one discussion is probably enough for a single post. :-)
DeleteNo matter what bad press foxes get....we love them....and not because they're cute and cuddly. Their whole image, bad press included, enables us to hold them in high esteem...clever, beautiful, the underdog when it comes to vicious hunting, etc etc. Our local sheep farmer once told me he would shoot at any pack of hunting dogs that came onto his land...he reckoned they did far more damage to his sheep than the odd fox. Great photo... and I'm glad that you are settled with your surgery decsion...hopefully, not too long now. J.
ReplyDeleteYou posted just as I was replying to the previous comment, so you wouldn't have seen my defence of the fox before you wrote this. I mentioned the dog attacks on my cats, but could just as easily have mentioned the farmer near us who had not just one but several sheep and lambs killed or injured in the same dog attack. This was not of course an isolated instance, so I entirely understand the attitude of the sheep farmer you quote.
DeleteGlad you liked the photo and yes, having made the surgery decision makes a big difference. :-)
Glad you've made a decision about your eye treatment. Take it easy, Perpetua. I can relate to feeling less than perky at the moment and I think for me it's the cold, changeable weather that does it. However, recently there has been sunshine after foggy and frosty mornings and we make the most of the daylight hours by going out when we can.
ReplyDeleteI'm doing a lot of soothing knitting at the moment, Linda. :-) The weather has been very grey and cloudy in Wales, even when other areas were getting sunshine, but yesterday and today have been gorgeous, if cold, and it makes such a difference! I went out for a walk this afternoon and felt so much better by the time I got back. :-)
DeleteFoxes are so beautiful . . . I love watching wildlife, but around our home all we have is squirrels and birds. If you go a couple miles out where the houses are not so close together and there are not 6 foot fences around every backyard, you'll see deer, jack rabbit, and coyotes. I found you in a comment that you left on Patricia's blog . . . A place for everything.....
ReplyDeleteI hope you don't mind me exploring your site. I love surfing the web in search of interesting blogs. Please accept my invitation to come over and visit, and enter my current Give-Away :)
I'm a retired wife, mother and grandmother . . . enjoying every day of retirement and having more time for family, friends, and creative interests. I've been a blogger for just over a year now.
Have a lovely day,
Connie :)
Hello Connie and welcome to my blog. I love the way we follow these links and find new blogs to enjoy. Explore all you like - we all write hoping to be read. :-) I see you're in the northwest USA, so there must be lots of wonderful wildlife out in the countryside. The UK is so small that foxes, under pressure of space and being very adaptable, have colonised urban areas too.
DeleteI think there must be a lot of us retired mothers and grandmothers busily blogging away. My DH thoroughly approves. He says it costs nothing and keeps me out of mischief. :-) I'll be across to have a look round very soon.