I SPY ....

[flee]

Went to put some hay out for the ponies yesterday afternoon and there , in the field , lolling around in broad daylight , were
not 1 ....
not 2 ....
not 3 ....
but 4 foxes .
4 very confident foxes .They just stood and watched me filling the hay boxes up from a few yards away and looked totally unphased , even though I had the dog with me . The poor dog , outnumbered and out-stared ,looked utterly unnerved and stuck to my heels like glue .
Fortunately our chickens , who don't normally go to bed until it's properly dark , appear to have had the good sense to retire to their coops early and were all accounted for . I think they're going to have to get used to early nights .

[gillwales]

Looks like some of the city foxes have been moved to your patch. If I was you I would let your local hunt know, if they go through your area it will make them more wary. Either that or Mr Flee will have to go into the Night Security business.

[chloesmum]

Funny I was thinking as I drove home late Sunday night from the station which is more town - we never see foxes around our lanes anymore but loads around the shops and houses - city dwellers who diet on Chinese takeaways and Macdonalds!!!
However we play I spy (or certainly Jacob does!) with deer! Driving up the main lane to where we live there are about 3 spots that are favourite crossing points so we often get little herds jumping out and then they stand in the road and stare at you. Jacob has residents in both his fields, they don't seem at all bothered by him and usually he ignores them but just lately he is very on his toes with them, perhaps that is winter instinct in protecting his dwindling grass supply!
Hope you get rid of Mr Fox and pals and your chickens are safe.

[flee]

Our local hunt are/were (!) harriers so , thanks entirely to their diligent conservation efforts in the past , we are extremely privileged here to have a magnificent and abundant population of brown hare who keep us thoroughly entertained with their cavorting in the fields . The ' anti's ' really don't understand or appreciate just what the hunts do for the management of our countryside .
We also have deer who sometimes appear in the fields behind us and many an hour is wasted gazing out of the windows watching the ones who live in the woods directly opposite . The nature watch isn't all one sided though - we have a barn owl who likes to come of an evening , sit on the lamp post outside our lounge window and watch us watching him !
The locals round here are keen shots and enjoy a challenge so I reckon Reynard and friends had better keep their wits about them . Which has just reminded me of something - when I was poo picking a few months ago I noticed a big pile of feathers in the grass which , on closer inspection , turned out to be a dead heron . It had a neat shot wound to its head and was still carrying in its beak a large carp which , I presume , it had pilfered from one of the many local fishing pits . It was so surreal I actually took a photo of it . I'll see if I can manage to upload it on here .

[sarahp]

No-one hunts around us as we are too near railways and main roads, but we have lots of wild life. Deer, badgers and foxes in abundance, lots of buzzards nesting in the woods around and I have seen a red kite once, they're only a few miles up the road so will doubtless get here eventually. The odd owl floating across the road while driving at night. A couple of years ago we had an obviously ill fox lurking around, so I rang the local wild animal sanctuary about it, hoping they'd scoop it up and take it to be cared for. No such luck, they decided it had mange (although no signs of it to the naked eye), so they suggested that they'd let me have some mange medicine, to be fed to the fox daily in a jam sandwich. No comment! Anyway, it disappeared of its own accord the next day, I still think it had been hit by a car and concussed, then after a couple of quiet days resting up in my outbuildings recovered and took itself off back to the wild.