Sneak Thief

Over the years we've seen the odd fox or two passing through the garden.  This is normally when the nights are drawing in and they happen to trip the security lights but we always assumed they were infrequent visitors.

There is a part of the garden that we call the orchard as there are a handful of old apple and plum trees in it.  On a dark evening you really can't see more than a few yards from the kitchen window and we've always wondered about what goes on down there during the night.

A couple of years ago we splashed out on a trail cam to see what visitors we had in the garden during darkness.  We were hoping to see some badgers but so far no joy.  What we did discover was that foxes were nightly visitors, slipping through the orchard from the fields on their way to wherever.

 Last Saturday morning we had a rare sighting of a fox in the daylight. It kept sneaking  into the orchard, had a nibble at something and then exiting to an overgrown area in the field next to us.  At first we thought it was because it had killed some unfortunate creature and was returning to feast on the remains.  It soon became apparent that what it was actually eating were fallen plums from the tree in the garden.

Not content with the plums on the ground he opted to pick his own. Annoyingly the side shoots sprouting from the apple trees managed to obscure a lot of the fox's head and no amount of healing brush was ever going to make it look natural.  I've since chopped them off hoping for a repeat performance but so far the fox has been absent (at least during daylight).

It was an interesting thing to watch (especially as it was well aware I was standing at the top of the orchard with the camera) but we are also concious that we now have a fox and pheasants making themselves at home in the garden.  The fox has already made an attempt on Billy the pheasant, but fortunately he made it safely into the branches of the willow tree.  Hopefully the pheasants will learn to keep out of the fox's way and keep out of the orchard.  The pheasant chicks are far too young for a flying escape.