Romping and Rolling in the Rockies: red fox

Showing posts with label red fox. Show all posts

Thursday, October 13, 2016

A Curious Mountain Lion

We had an exciting couple of days at a scent post in the forest nearby. The scent post is on a saddle of a ridge, and it has a huge Ponderosa Pine in the middle of it. It's been exceptionally quiet for months, and then there was suddenly a flurry of activity.

First, a very curious but seemingly timid mountain lion spent a few minutes checking out the site. He looked small from this point of view.

He sniffed around very carefully.

He paced in and out of the field of view. The he (or she - I don't know which) marked the ground behind the tree.

And then the lion walked onward. In this view, You can see that the lion was big but probably young. The bar on the inside of his/her front right limb is probably a vestige of kitten markings.

When I looked at more photos taken by that camera, I discovered that a small herd of elk had crowded into the clearing. One was a calf that must have been born very late this year because he still has spots! By this time of year, the calves' spots have usually disappeared.

I also saw that a red fox had come through the clearing. He looks tiny compared to the other animals who had been there.

I made a video of the mountain lion's almost two minutes prowling around the clearing which you can watch here or at Youtube.

Seeing that video made me smile!

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Fox in the Bear Den & First Cub Sighting

Back to the bear den -- all was quiet throughout March except that a red fox visited the bear den. He appeared to be attracted by the sound of the cubs crying. He stared at the entrance, taking a step or two toward it, and then backing off. When he got close to the entrance, the cubs went silent. He did that for 7 minutes!

Finally, he basically crawled into the den, with only his tail sticking out. I heard no sounds from the sow - no snorts or snarls. When the fox finally emerged, he did NOT have a cub in his mouth. I suspect that the sow hid the cubs under her and had a silent standoff with him.

Then, nothing much happened (the bears were snuggled in the den) until 4/10 - the day that the cubs decided that they wanted to go outside the den. However, mom didn't agree and kept pulling them back in. Here she is, resting between the 43 attempts that I counted of the cubs trying to escape!

All of this is included in a short video. You can watch it here or at Youtube. Although the scene appears quite bright through the trail cam lens - the lights were only infrared so the animals couldn't see them.

I sure hope that you enjoy it as much as I did! I love seeing the secret lives of our wildlife!

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Black and White Sunday: Bear Butts and Canines

Mom, Does this tree make our butts look big?

Rare Silver morph of the Red Fox

My Girl

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Wordless Wednesday

Coyote

Red Fox

Friday, March 9, 2012

Robins, foxes, and a dog

We headed out for our morning hike in spring-like weather. The frost from yesterday seemed like a distant memory as I rapidly overheated in the hot sunshine.

As we walked, hordes of Robins chirped and fluttered all around us. For the first time in months, the forest felt truly alive.

The robins were moving so fast that I had a tough time capturing a photo but I caught a Robin or two sitting still in the sunlight. Robins are such a classic sign of spring that I was thrilled to see them!

K seemed to find the forest fascinating. She repeatedly lifted her nose into the air to catch wafts of scents. Her nose and the tracks in the snow told me that other animals besides Robins were returning to our forest.

Based on K's behavior, I decided to check a wildlife camera. I discovered that a red fox had visited and even tried to climb a tree in view of one camera. I've read that gray foxes (but not red foxes) can indeed climb trees, and I found a Youtube video of one climbing. Our little red fox didn't get any higher than in the photo below.

When he came down from the tree, he looked at the camera's soft red glow.

Red foxes are not as common as coyotes in our neck of the woods so I was thrilled to see this little fox, even though we couldn't see his lustrous red coat due to the "infrared" flash used by most of my wildlife cameras.

After checking the camera, we kept walking, and K moved with happiness and speed, so fast that she blurred in my camera lens. She's still an intense dog.

We found warm and sunny enclaves in the forest in where it truly felt like spring. K settled in to forage on the kinnikinnick that is emerging from under the melting snow. Some berries still hung from the ground covering shrub, and K loves them (and they're fine for her to eat). So, K nibbled her way through our hike. She's lying in kinnikinnick in the photo below.

Sometimes, after our hikes together, I am convinced that K views the entire world as one big eating opportunity - a huge kitchen! I think that she may welcome spring for different reasons than I do.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Pupdate

Our K is doing fine after her first day of radiation. She seems perky and happy tonight. Two more days to go... And, we just learned that she'll get her first infusion of chemotherapy drugs on Friday.

R continues to keep all of us amused during this stressful time. I took this photo while he and I romped on the trails today. He thought that standing still and balancing a treat on his nose, right in the middle of a romp in the snow, was cruel and unusual. Hmm, maybe he's right...

The wildlife is coming out of hiding in our neck of the woods. I'll share some trail camera photos in the coming days but, for today, I wanted to show you the red fox who we saw near the Vet Hospital during a break. His perch looks soft and warm.

And, check out the coyote who peeked at me from the bushes near our house. Do you see him? He didn't think that I saw him and stood perfectly still as I snapped photos.

Now, let's just hope that R doesn't meet this next character who has been on our trails lately.

Thanks to all of you for your good thoughts and wishes today for K's first radiation treatment. I am humbled by your generous spirits and so grateful for your support. I am also joyful about how strongly K came through today's treatment.

Monday, November 7, 2011

The easier path

The power of the paws...

Churning through the snow...

K is my guardian dog and I am her guardian human. Ever since I was part of a search and rescue team with my dog years ago, I view my relationships with my dogs as partnerships. I don't think of myself as a dog "mom" - a dog "sister" describes my view better.

K watched over me while I followed bear tracks yesterday, and she plans to do the same again today. Yesterday, my friend and I got a good idea of where the bear was heading, and we saw that the big bear had been spending a lot of time in the general area where we followed his tracks. He'd left other tracks within the past few days, suggesting to me that there's possibly a den near that area. K will watch over me again today as we try to pinpoint the den before more snow falls. It's supposed to fall tonight.

Due to all the snow, I've been re-finding my snowbike legs, mostly riding obscure trails where no one else goes so my tire tracks are the biggest blemish on the smooth snow. Yes, that's a big cliff just in front of my bike...

Because no one else goes there, my very wide tire tracks provide the only packed surface for animals to walk on. They take full advantage of the easier path that my tire tracks provide. These are the tracks of a bobcat walking in my tire track one afternoon.

In fact, I got a photo of him as he was making those pawprints.

And, after he passed the camera, a red fox warily walked by, deviating from my tire tracks as he stared at the camera.

The next morning, the bobcat walked past the camera yet again, still using my tire tracks to make walking easier. This time, he/she carried breakfast - a rabbit. I wonder if this is the mother bobcat who we followed via my trail cameras as she raised her kitten this summer. There was no sign of a second bobcat in my photos but the paw prints further up the trail suggested that a second, smaller, bobcat was nearby. Perhaps this bobcat was taking her rabbit to share with her kitten.

This year has been different from recent years, with the onslaught of winter a bit early. All of my photos look like the one above now with white everywhere. Snow covers all of the forest except the most exposed areas.

I'm missing the colors of summer and autumn but I'm starting to get in the swing of winter.