Into the Woods

I’m not ashamed to say that all that overgrowth is in my front yard.

I was reading near the upstairs window with Lily curled up beside me when I saw that Lily had her eye on something out the window. She has stopped growling at the fox now. She just watches it, alert. Clearly the fox feels very much at home in the yard, and for some reason I’m seeing it more often in broad daylight. It lies in the sun. It moves to the shade and lies in the shade for a while. It yawns. It stretches. It patrols for voles. It’s just like having a little dog in the yard.

I rarely get an opportunity to photograph the fox, and something always seems to go wrong. This time not only did I have to change to the telephoto lens, the camera’s battery was dead and I had to snap in a fresh one. I was too afraid to miss a shot to fiddle with the adjustments. These photos were taken with too narrow an aperture, which forced a slow lens, which led to some blurring.

I’ve had no further incidents with the fox and chickens. I’m hoping the fox is eating enough voles to not get too hungry for chicken.

It’s nice having a dog — I mean a fox — in the yard. I don’t even have to feed it, and, unlike Lily, it’s not always demanding attention.