Saturday, March 04, 2006

Foxes and Flowers


Yesterday my order of organic bird seed arrived while I was sleeping off a migraine. That afternoon I eagerly tossed handfuls of seed beneath the evergreen tree outside my window. It’s been rather cold around here, and I figured it was high time I start doing my share to give back to the local wildlife.

I was hoping not only to help the birds through the cold spell, but also to improve my chances of getting some pictures. As I’ve mentioned before, the birds around here are plentiful and beautiful! This morning, upon awakening, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, fed the dogs, put on my glasses, and went to sit down by the window and wait to see who came for the feast.

As I looked at the seed on the ground below, I noticed that many of the peanuts (which are a part of one of the bird seed mixes) had already been cracked open. Assuming the squirrels had arrived first, I began to scan the ground for grey fluffy tails. About two seconds later, a beautiful, black-eared, golden-red fox strolled over, and proceeded to happily make breakfast out of the seeds and nuts!

It was the most amazing sight! I’ve seen foxes from a distance trotting around the farm, but this was as close as I’ve ever gotten to a fox. I happily observed her/him for a good fifteen minutes munching away at the sunflower seeds. The fox was obviously picking out the good ones, and seemed much happier with some of the smaller seeds as opposed to the peanuts.

After the fox went on its way, I went out to look around a little, and found the flowers you see in the above picture just beyond the tree. I believe that these are called snowdrops. Having bloomed only in the last day, they have managed to precede the crocus who have been diligently swelling for weeks now. I know that those croci are going to open sometime soon… perhaps this week?

16 comments:

  1. I love snowdrops. I'm going to plant a cart-load of them for next year.

    I'd love to see a fox. Here on Vancouver Island, I don't think we have them, although if we scatter seeds around we're as likely to be feeding squirrels, deer or raccooon as the birds.

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  2. Do you know the speices(or breed) of the fox? It must have been a beutiful site to see, Did you give him a name?

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  3. You're so right SpiderGirl... I saw deer out the other night as well! Something tells me I'm going to need more "bird seed", and fast!

    Ducklover, I believe that this species is the red fox, and you can read more about them at the Pennsylvania Game Commission here:
    http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/view.asp?a=458&q=150377

    That weblink even shows a little picture so you can see how darn gorgeous they are... they have red-gold bodies with black legs and black ears, and a bushy, white-tipped tail. My husky puppy went crazy watching it out the window. He must think it's a "mini-me."

    I'm not sure if this is a male or a female, but I'm pretty certain it's the same one that came back again as soon as the sun set this evening. I've also learned that the loud noises I've been hearing at night are not bobcats, but these foxes calling for mates (this is their mating season). I'm going to be on the lookout for pups soon... the landlady said they had their pups in the old barn last year, and maybe they'll do the same again this year!

    For the artistic version of the red fox, check out this link:

    http://www.thewildones.org/ChaArt/redFox.html

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  4. The links about redfox was very useful

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  5. Glad you enjoyed them Tahrman! I should have included the links in the original post - I think I'll go insert them now. Foxes are really remarkable creatures.

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  6. We had a family of foxes that frequented our old house. They're spritely little boogers, aren't they?

    I arrived back home to a profusion of little violets in my front yard. Time for more flower porn!

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  7. The snowdrops give such a surreal quality to this photograph, which is otherwise dry.

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  8. Imagine my surprise to find them blossoming there in the duff! :) I'm glad you enjoyed them Barbara.

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  9. Would it cause problems to continue to feed the fox?

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  10. Hi Ducklover! The only problems I really foresee are from encouraging the wildlife to come close to the house when I have two big dogs. However, I always like to make a lot of noise when I come out the door with the dogs to give the animals fair warning, and I KNOW they know the dogs are near since they leave their smell everywhere.

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  11. Hi, I came here from Crystal's site and I've really enjoyed your pictures and reading the posts. Looks like you live in a beautiful area. I especially love ruins; as a kid I used to play in some near my house and make up stories about the people who lived there.

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  12. Hello Lily, and welcome! I'm glad that you're enjoying Arboreality - I have so much fun producing it!

    I admit, ever since I started exploring these ruins, I've been crafting up stories of my own... it's hard to resist when you look around and see so much history and start to wonder about "what was"! :)

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  13. Have the dogs every gone off after the wild life?

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  14. Oh yeah... every chance they get! :D

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  15. What did the animals think?

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