The autumn and winter of 2024 have been pretty quiet on the fox front, especially after an amazing spring and summer with Ruby’s and White-tip’s combined litters of cubs. Deploying camera traps revealed that foxes were still around, so as winter slowly came to an end, I decided to start putting out supplemental kibble in the evenings—to get them used to the area and perhaps encourage them to consider it as a good site for a birthing den.
Over a few weeks, it became clear that foxes were appearing in the darkness as soon as I scattered the food, and before long, they began showing up regularly during the day.
There are four foxes in the immediate area, all of whom seem to get along quite well. There’s a pair—Bramble (a vixen) and Rusty, her mate. To add a little confusion, there’s a second male, Big Red. The fourth fox is less commonly seen, and I’m not entirely sure of its gender. You might wonder how the dynamics of this group work, given the presence of two male foxes, but having observed many complex family groups over the years, I suspect one of the males could be a cub from last year. There’s no way to know for sure, as I don’t recognise any of these foxes from previous seasons.
After weeks of consistent and predictable sightings, their behaviour changed on Friday, 7th March. No foxes were seen during the day, and only Big Red appeared just before dark. It’s probably too early to jump to conclusions, but I wonder if Bramble has gone to ground to give birth. If so, I won’t see her again for about 10 days, during which the other foxes should be busy providing her with food. In past years, local vixens have tended to go to ground around the 20th of March.
Let’s see…
Big Red (male)
So named due to his relative stature amongst the local foxes and his heavy coat.
Distinguishing features: Quite a deep red coat with a white tip to his tail. He has dark tear stripes and a single dark scar on the centre of his muzzle, near his nose. He has a white spot on his otherwise black right-rear foot, and a dark patch just above his left hock (ankle).
Character: A confident fox around the feeding site, but he does not tolerate my presence.
Rusty (Male)
My working hypothesis is that Rusty is Bramble's mate. They seem to spend a lot of time in close proximity to one another.
Distinguishing features: A paler coloured red fur with a white tip to his tail. Pale tear stripes and three dark scars on his muzzle, the most prominent being set slightly to the right of the muzzle, near to the nose.
Character: He was the first of the foxes to get used to me and learn the supplemental kibble routine. He's super confident in my presence and will often lie curled up in the field waiting for me. So long as I respect the distance between us, he'll stay curled up and watch me.
Bramble (Female)
So named because she slips away into the bramble hedge whenever I encounter her in the field.
Distinguishing features: Very pale red with flanks and shoulders silvery grey. She has dark tear stripes and her muzzle is free of scarring. She does not have a white tip to her tail.
Character: She is intolerant of my presence and will ghost out of the field as soon as I break eye contact with her, although she's pretty quick to return. She's quite subordinate to the other foxes around the supplemental kibble and I also saw one of the males bully her off a rabbit kill. I hope they shape up and look after her when she has cubs.
Great photos Mike.