Sam Fox: People watching
We've been pondering the change of Fox behaviour over the last week or so. During the first week of February the sun was shining, the air was cold and the Fox sightings were numerous. Then from the 9th February the weather turned grey and cloudy and the fox sightings dried up with mainly nocturnal sightings being captured by the camera traps. The working hypothesis was that it may be a weather effect.
Well today has been the first sunny day in over a week and we had two great sightings. Firstly there was the timid Broken Tail, who had a minor limp, and then a wonderful sighting of the local vixen, Sam Fox. After lapping up her honey treat she spent quite a few minutes sitting at the back of the field watching us, watching her.
Another bonus of seeing Sam Fox so clearly was a chance to compare her photographs (see below). On the 19th January she was seen mating with, presummably, White Tip. On the 29th January I photographed her and then photographed her again today in a very similar pose.
The interesting part of this comparison is her apparent heavy belly. In the photos below I've highted the distance from her back to her chest and belly. In the January image, the line running from back to belly is noticeably shorter than the back to chest. The opposite is true in the Mid-February image. This is real emphasied by the blue line connecting the two read lines, the slope of which changes direction.
So, what does this mean? Is she 4 weeks pregnant or has she simply had a very large meal? I'm hoping the former.
Sam Fox with baby bump?