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Red Fox Sniffing
In the morning we will very often find a red
fox standing on our front lawn, or see him/her strolling zippety-doo-dah
casual down the
middle of the street. A cool thing.
In our early days here, we would often awake in the pre-dawn hour to
the blood curdling sound of a
rabbit screaming whilst being ripped apart by a fox. Or
so imagination dictated. Some people, alarmed,
called animal control
who would then be obligated to dutifully spend a few days trapping them
and, we told our
children, drive them to the eastern shore where they would be ever so
happy. Ahem.
In the aftermath, the rabbit population
would explode, and
nobody could grow vegetables, or even leafy plants. Finally,
I looked up fox sounds on this new thing called the internet, and was
able to report at the next Brie and Chardonnay tasting that what
we
were
hearing were sounds of hungry fox cubs.
Much buzzing.
Come the foxes, rabbit problem solved. It's a cycle. We all
expect that
some New York transplant will soon
report our red fox, and it will disappear. It's a cycle.
I'm cool with it. |
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I've only seen foxes a few times in the last twenty years, and they're always miles away from my house.
ReplyDeleteThere are predators: Owls, hawks, and an occasional roving bobcat.
We even had a rare nesting pair of Mexican Eagles one year. I haven't seen them since and heard they moved to section 8 housing in the sanctuary city of Houston.
Coyotes. In Plano, TX. Like finding a gun counter at Macy's.
ReplyDeleteKim
We have both color of foxes here. We encourage them, in hopes they'll eat the Canada geese, and someday perhaps the deer. We still have almost no larger predators around here, although the deer and goose population could support wolves, coyotes, coy-dogs, even bears. Ok, we do have bears, but not that many and they get "handled" when they intrude into suburbia.
ReplyDeleteEvery once a while a newbie will find their kitty cat gutted on the front lawn. Zipped open with almost surgical precision and the internal organs gone. They'll get all excited, start yelling about Satanists making animal sacrifices.Then animal control will tell them, "Nope just coyotes. For them a cat doesn't have enough muscle tissue, so they don't bother to eat the whole cat they just go for the internal organs for nutrients and vitamins.
ReplyDeleteToad, just like mother always said...eat your liver...it's good for you.
ReplyDeleteWe have fox(s) who show up on occasion, and owls, hawks, and bald eagles. Still lots of rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks and various other critters (including skunks) for them all to feast upon. Far too many geese, wish they would be more into fowl...but you can't have everything. Oh, and coyotes too...and rumor has it wolves may not be too far off (they do reside across the cheddar curtain about 40 miles north of us). So maybe the rats with antlers will finally get properly thinned out.
My wife found our cat Sid on the lawn just like described above. Coy dogs in S. California. A broadhead from a PSE Laser Magnum hit three coy dogs in the gut over the next few months, from the bathroom window. I am to this day the Hannibal Lecter of the coyote world. LOVE to kill them by any means. -Anymouse
ReplyDelete