Yesterday I spent some time up at the wood, camera in hand, and it was quiet. a Buzzard popped by but only stayed for about a minute. There was a small party of tits come through, including a Chiffchaff, several Blue Tits and a pair of Long tailed Tits but it was bright sun and they were in the trees so not worth photographing.

About 3pm I was thinking of leaving and then a fox came along, this was a young one and not one I have seen before. It was small, with a very narrow face and quite thin but it was in superb condition.  It was a dog fox, I could just see its credentials, no doubt they will develop as it matures but at this stage they were quite discreet!

This fox was quite unperturbed by the noise from my camera shutter, I had it on what the manufacturers call silent but you can still hear it and foxes have incredibly acute hearing and quite often the noise will put them off and they turn tail and don’t return for a long time. This one though was back and forth for some while.

At one stage it jumped up onto a fallen tree trunk and posed very nicely, unfortunately it was in bright sunshine which made the photo look a bit harsh, but he did his best.

Then another fox turned up this was very similar to the female that has been around since May, except it did not have a small indentation in its ear, Can a slightly damaged ear repair itself? I would not think so.  This adult vixen came back a forth a few times but was much more wary than the youngster.

Then in the distance I spotted another fox, this one I call ‘Scarface’, he is a right bruiser and quite unattractive. I have seen him several times before and often accompanied the vixen with the nick in her ear. He stayed well back and never came close, after about five minutes of observation, he turned tail and was off.

Then another small fox came by, this was quite a dark brown and was always on the move, just dashing through and not stopping. I think this is another young one, from its size, maybe a sibling of the young male. Incidentally the young male has a dark mark on the inside of one ear, which is good for identification purposes.

After about an hour of fox fun I decided to call it a day and left, no doubt the more nervous ones could then approach and sample the goodies.