Morning visitor

[altariel]

Just sat down at the kitchen table (I sit looking out into our newly-renovated back garden), and caught a glimpse of ginger passing across the lawn. "Blimey," I thought as I looked up, "next door's cat is getting big."

But it wasn't next door's cat, it was a fox. It stopped and turned and looked right at me, then turned away, yawned and padded off. Gorgeous, although I wonder now if I should worry about my more regular visitor, the grey squirrel of great busyness.

Sorry if this seems commonplace to you. I am a pitifully urban creature of the kind that would be standing wan and anxious at a rural railway station in a story about evacuee children. I think I've only seen a fox once before. Also, our garden isn't that big, and so a fox looked pretty grand out there in the morning sun.

ETA: Busy squirrel just nipped past, heading in the other direction.

ETA2: Ooh, there goes the fox again - heading after the squirrel! Blimey, it's all go around here this morning.

Comments

[the-wild-iris.livejournal.com]

Over here I've seen wild rabbits up close, which was a first, I think - also pheasants, and once a heron. It's amazing how you can get so used to living in towns, and then suddenly realise that there are wild animals out there :)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The peacock really is the growning glory. We did that RSPB Birdwatch thing earlier in the year and absolutely no birds came past for the whole hour. I'm looking out now and the garden is teeming with creatures.

[archbishopm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I always at first glance parse foxes as cats and coyotes as dogs. Fugly dogs.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Next door's cat is a big old beast as well, slinks around here clearly thinking it's a tiger.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

quarryquest sees urban foxes all the time in London. I think she's around Kelburn.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I knew conceptually there wre urban foxes, but always assumed they came out at dawn and dusk. This one is trotting around in broad daylight like it owns the place!

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Grey squirrels are evil invaders who've almost entirely killed off the red ones. I'd be cheering the fox on if I were you.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Aw, I know, but this fellow is so sprightly and chipper I can't bring myself to blame him for the crimes of his ancestors.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Lovely! I like grey squirrels, and foxes are just plain beautiful.

My boss, who sometimes judges poetry comps, once made a poem out of really bad first lines of entries. My favourite, the ponciest by far, was

"Squirrel at my window, framed rodent".

[altariel.livejournal.com]

"Squirrel at my window, framed rodent".

*winces*

BTW, I saw the headline on today's Sunday Telegraph and thought of you: "Secret plans to slash Navy".

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely! There's a fox (or maybe more than one) that comes round occasionally at home, though I don't think I've seen it for a little while. I know what you mean about it seeming so strange, though. Even though I've seen it quite a few times, it still always takes me a moment to recognise what it is,

There are squirrels, too - in fact, one appeared on the front lawn last week. Having mown the grass a few days before, I told it that there wasn't anything there, but it promptly went and dug something up and ran off with it. Outsmarted by a squirrel.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

You really don't expect to see them, even when you know that they're common in urban and suburban places.

Outsmarted by a squirrel.

LOL!

[oursin.livejournal.com]

We also have urban hedgehogs round our way.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Now I'm surprised I've not seen hedgehogs here. Our back garden used to be a wilderness, four or five feet high grass and tangles, and I bet there were hedgehogs then. We may have lost them when it got cleared :-(

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Cool! I hope Mr or Ms Fox keeps coming back to entertain you. I don't think I've seen foxes in the back green, but I have encountered them sauntering along the pavement on the other side of the road, walking home from work one evening. I think they are slightly less frequent now we have bins for our rubbish rather than putting sacks out on collection day.

Wan and anxious you would be homed by very kind family who would cherish you, I am sure. And you would have marvellous adventures. With foxes.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I hope he pops up too. You're right, it must be thin pickings round here with the big wheelie bins. Perhaps they'll work out a way of tipping them over.

you would have marvellous adventures. With foxes.

Like Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox! I always liked that one, with all the underground tunnels.

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

It's semi-rural where I am, and I can't say I have seen foxes around here. There are plenty of rabbits and pheasants, and the odd squirrel. I have more than once seen a pheasant look both ways before deciding to cross the road anyway, and subsequently seen a cloud of feathers in my rear-view mirror.

Your story reminds me that I saw a fox when walking back to my car after the Last Night of the Proms. That must have been at most a mile out of the centre of Reading, just after midnight. It didn't seem at all perturbed by my presence, just gave me a look and then carried on with its stalking.

And as I'm originally from the North, where we still have red squirrels, I am all in favour of the fox repelling the invaders!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Back in the days when I was a Catholic, I went on retreat to a big house in Kintbury, and woke up on the Sunday morning to see the field outside carpeted in pheasants. Amazing sight.

When I lived in Reading, it was in a set of maisonettes set back from the road (Kendrick Road), which had their own garden. There were a period when we were kept awake most nights by a very loud snuffling noise which I would like to think was a badger, but which I think was hedgehogs being frisky with each other.

I grew up in the north too, but I never saw a red squirrel :-(

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

How neat! (:

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

I love seeing wild animals in the city! Um, except rats. And cockroaches. Speciesist, I know ;).

I used to see foxes all the time when I lived in London, and my mum gets them in her garden in Glasgow a lot... they're beautiful. Here in LA you see raccoons sometimes, which never fails to astonish me -- they're so big and round and not what I'm expecting!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think it's reasonable to be wary of rats! The whole Black Death thing was a severe test of trust ;-) I love those tiny black mice that scurry around the lines on the Underground. And London squirrels are something else.

Friends in North Carolina have deer in their garden. They started out shooing them away, then the does put their fawns on display, and now they go out and buy bags of grain. I saw them while we were out there: so beautiful!

[temeres.livejournal.com]

Welcome to my world:)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

:-) It is a lovely world. I am trying to be less rubbish about not noticing it.

[manna]

archie_gremlin, who grew up in the countryside, says that they're incredibly hard to spot out there. He was amazed when he came to my parent's house in Bradford and saw the foxes there.

They used to bring their cubs out to play on the tennis court when they first came out of the den -- little fuzzy critters, all so incredibly cute. The large dog fox used to nap on the lawn under the tree, and if you went out into the garden would open one eye to check who you were, then go back to sleep. And because my granny, who lived in a granny-flat that opened onto the garden, used to put scraps out for the birds, the foxes would come right up to the house to look for the food, then peer in through her window to see what was going on.

Probably the tameness has something to do with people in town not coming after them with shotguns :-)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Oh, how delightful! The swans on the river here parade their young up and down close to the bank to win prizes-for-cute from passing tourists.

Probably the tameness has something to do with people in town not coming after them with shotguns :-)

Heh. Although given how many people are keeping hens in towns now perhaps it won't be long...

[telperion1.livejournal.com]

Where my parents live - and where I grew up and lived until summer '06 - is quite rural, and it's not that unusual to see deer lazing about in the parking lots. Now I live about a dozen blocks form the dow2ntown of a big city, and the most animal life we see is an occasional bird on the telephone wire. It surprised me how much I'd gotten used to my urban life when I went home for Christmas last year.

So yeah, I can understand your surprise!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I grew up in a pretty suburban area: there was countryside quite close, but my mother gave up driving and so I didn't wander around much (my favourite area for walking was the nearby ruined Windleshaw "abbey"). So it's only recently that I've started paying attention to the wildlife around me, mostly because of temeres.

Friends of ours in NC have deer that come into their garden: they started out shooing them away, then the fawns got paraded past the window, now they buy bags of grain!

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Neat! Perhaps it was one of vaznetti's foxes.

[greylin.livejournal.com]

I wonder if it was a sentient fox.

I have become ambivalent about urban foxes since I came home from work one lunchtime to find my two gorgeous, happy chickens had vanished from my garden leaving nary a trace, not even a feather to remember them by. A week later neighbours reported seeing TWO foxes climbing over my 6 ft fence in broad daylight - presumably coming back to see if there were any more free dinners. Huh!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

TWO foxes climbing over my 6 ft fence in broad daylight

Good Lord, that's pretty damn rich! Your poor chickens :-(

[altariel.livejournal.com]

My pleasure!

[trixieleitz]

Since you mentioned squirrels: this chap is my current desktop background.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

AAWWWW! Also: *is ded from otter*

Hiya,

[quarryquest.livejournal.com]

Vilakins sent me over here ...

I live in Kilburn in London and we have a family of foxes who have a permanent home in a garden across the road from here. They usually breed very happily and a couple of years ago I saw the delightful sight of mum and dad taking the four kids out on a training session. Dad was sniffing all the lamp posts and cocking his leg just like any dog.

The funniest thing I have seen is my boyfriend going very confused when a dog fox trotted past us near Marble Arch and then sat down next to us while we waited for the bus back home. It didn't join us on the bus when it came though! When I lived in Golder's Green there was a family so tame you could pet them and their cubs loved to have their tummies tickled.

Lots of wildlife in my part of London - including Herons on their way to the heronry in Regent's Park.

Re: Hiya,

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Oh these stories are delightful, thank you so much for coming over! The bus one is definitely my favourite, that's classic. Perhaps it had left its Oyster card at home.

I think I may have seen something about the herons in Regent Park on a Bill Oddie programme the other week, he was talking about how surprising it is to see them in urban areas, because they seem so wild.

The squirrel has been back a few times, also a regular robin, but no more sign of the fox. I'm hoping it will come past at the weekend again when things are a bit quieter in the mornings.

[toft-froggy.livejournal.com]

Woah, don't overdo it, there.

Your posts brighten my day.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm chuffed and slightly amazed my posts brighten anyone's day. All I do all day is sit at the kitchen table and type.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Foxes look grand pretty much aywhere. What an exciting visitor!

(I wouldn't worry too much about your squirrel. The exercise he'll get dashing away from the fix will do him good.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I was absolutely delighted! I hope it turns up again.

The squirrel is pretty nippy on his feet. He's around most days. There's a fig tree at the bottom of the garden that is providing good pickings right now.