The birds are flocking together, the temperature has dropped a little and a few trees have started to turn color. I’m not sure fall is here but it is definitely coming. I love fall but I miss the babies that were so common in May and June. Most of them are still here, they just aren’t as cute as they were two months ago.
It is cool and rainy today so we are at home in our trailer editing film clips and photos. As I was going though some of this summer’s photos I realized there are many I haven’t showed you. So starting today I am going to go back and have a look at some of this summer’s babies.
One of the first families we found back in early May was a family of 12 to 14 baby red foxes and a mom who appeared to be raising them on her own. I say 12 to 14 because there were 12 living in a den but about 50 feet away was another den with two babies. We never saw any parents at the second den but we did see babies from the first den go to the second one and visa versa. We never really figured out what was going on but we were amazed that one relatively skinny fox could raise that many babies.
While she was out hunting the babies were either down in their den sleeping or out playing.
When mom came back they ran to her and immediately started nursing. She couldn’t accommodate all of them at once but that didn’t keep them from trying. A couple of times she had so many babies under her they literally rotated her 360 degrees. I had never seen that before.
When they weren’t nursing the babies were always trying to get Mom’s attention. She always seemed rather stoic when they came at her.
We spent some wonderful days with this family and were really sorry when she moved the den somewhere we couldn’t find it.
She looks a bit skinny but the babies look really healthy. That’s more babies than I would expect…don’t they usually have around 9 at the most? Really good photos of all.
What a great story, Judy. I love the photos of Mama fox with her babies.
Thank you Kitty. I missed those little guys and sure hope they are OK.