Fantastic Mr Fox
Fantastic Mr Fox
by Ian Parsons
The Fox I am watching holds its head up and into the breeze, it has clearly caught a whiff of a potential meal. It lowers its sleek head and looks quickly about, its eyes passing right over my location without seeing me as I sit stock still, ensconced in my hiding place, almost afraid to breathe. The beautiful, slender fox trots through the long grass, as if dancing between the moving stems, an orange red movement in a swaying sea of green. It is moving arrow straight, its body following its sensitive nose, homing in on its next meal.
I watch the quick movement, the sudden thrust of the head, the snapping of the jaws; the fox has its food, and it has all played out right in front of me. You might be imagining that I am sat in a hide on the edge of a hay meadow, a bucolic spot somewhere in the British countryside, witnessing the predacious Fox taking an unwary vole. But in fact, I am sat in the driver’s seat of my car, parked on the edge of a cemetery in the heart of a city; it was no small mammal that had been taken, it looked like the remains of a sandwich. The Fox I have just been watching is no country Fox, it is an urban Fox.
Above: Foxes are thriving in our towns and cities to the point it is easier to see them here than in the countryside. ©Mark Caunt/Shutterstock
I live in the heart of Devon, a rural spot in a rural county, but other than the odd, sad, roadkill I very rarely see foxes here - but I do see them when I come into the city. For me, foxes are far easier to see in urban areas than they are in rural ones. The Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) is a real opportunist and they have grabbed the opportunity that urban living offers them; the highest densities of Fox in Britain are not found in the countryside, they are found in our towns and cities.
There is an abundance of easy food on offer; our wasteful habits require no deft hunting skills to be exploited, these predators can simply walk up and take their food. It is quite literally a rubbish diet, but it is one that the foxes thrive on. There are plenty of safe denning sites, under a garden shed is a favourite spot, and there are plenty of open green spaces too - parks, railway cuttings, allotments, gardens and cemeteries often form a network of near natural habitat right in the heart of our cities and towns. And, of course, there is a different human attitude. Here the Fox isn’t viewed as vermin and persecuted, it is mostly viewed with an indifferent eye and left to get on with it. But there are also plenty of people that delight in seeing these urban predators in our midst.
The urban Fox has a much more relaxed manner towards our presence, it doesn’t see us as a threat, it largely ignores us, but it does so knowing that we can also provide an easy source of food. There are dangers of course and their lives are often short; traffic and trains take a heavy toll, and the diet doesn’t do them any favours. But, like the one I have just watched in broad daylight in the heart of a city with a population of over 130,000 people, they can go about their lives in a pretty relaxed way.
Above: Ian’s urban encounter lies sleeping in the open, the bustling of human life going on around it. ©Ian Parsons
I love watching foxes, they are such beautiful animals and are one of the few mammalian predators we have in this country, and being able to see them close up like I just had is always a thrill. The Fox in the cemetery had moved off with its meal, I had lost sight of. I got out of the car and headed into the cemetery myself, I was here to look at the trees (urban cemeteries are often mini arboretums) and I wasn’t expecting to see the Fox again, but I hadn’t gone far when I spotted it once more. It wasn’t slinking its way through vegetation to avoid being seen, it was lying right out in the open on a grassy gravel area used as an occasional turning circle by the cemetery traffic. It was having a snooze in the sun, sleeping off its sandwich. I couldn’t believe my luck and I actually had my camera with me! The fox watched me through almost shut eyes, puzzled by my interest, but most definitely not troubled by it. A siren was wailing, the throb of traffic hung in the air, a myriad of voices carried on the breeze. All of the noisy distractions of human living were going on around me, but all I noticed was that beautiful urban Fox.
Ian Parsons. August 2021.
