The hunt

A red fox looked like it was hunting mice over in the neighbor’s yard this afternoon.

Can he smell mice through the snow?

I tried to open the window to get a better shot without window glass reflection, but the fox heard me, and immediately raised its head and looked like it would run off.

I was probably 300 feet from the fox, but obviously my muted squeaky window was quite loud to the fox.

Although the fox turned and looked like it would run back into the woods, it suddenly paused, turned back toward my backyard and started creeping up the hill between our two yards. There were two gray squirrels nosing around for seeds beneath the bird feeders, but I don’t see how the fox could have seen them because it was downhill from them.

And here is where the fox remained, squinting into the sun for about five minutes while the squirrels frisked about the bird feeders.

Oh, how I wish I could open the window (despite the -5 F temperature) to get a cleaner shot, but this will have to do.

And then…one of the squirrels made a move to visit another bird feeder, heading straight toward the fox.  And the fox made its move.

Amazing how fast that fox closed on the unsuspecting squirrel. 

Two giant leaps and he was on it.  Finally the squirrel took evasive action, but it was too little too late.

But of course the collision between fox and squirrel took place exactly where I had no window view. However, I was able to verify that the fox ran off up the neighbor’s hill with a big lump of squirrel in its jaws.

 

At first I was glad to see that the squirrel population was reduced by one because the backyard is overrun with them.   But if squirrels are what bring foxes to my backyard, then I should be happy the pesky squirrels are so numerous.