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19 Sep 2009 11:45 PM

My wife, on returning home from one of the meetings she goes to, had a twinkle in her eye and I knew, at some point, she had something to tell me.

She took off her coat, settled in a seat and sipped on tea I had just handed to her.  She looked over to me and said.

A man went into a bank and asked for a £50,000 bank loan so that he could have a month's foreign holiday.

The bank manager said that he would have to have collateral and the man asked if his Rolls Royce car would suffice.  The bank manager rubbed his hands in glee and said that would be fine.

The man went out of the bank and while he was on holiday, the bank manage did a ratings search on the new bank' s member and found out that he was a multi million air.

When the man was due home and ready to pick his car up and pay of f his loan, the bank manager was there to greet him and asked the holidaymaker why he wanted to borrow from the bank when he had millions in the bank.

The reply that came was 'Where else could I get secure free parking for a month.!'

My wife thought it was very funny but it was 'old hat' to me.  Never the less, I went along with the joke.

Joking aside, yesterday, I received a note from a lady who lives in England, telling me that she had, for a couple of days, last week, been looking out of her bedroom window to catch sight of meteors; something I have never been able to see, but told me she was out of luck due to there being cloud formations. 

All was not lost though for there had been a slight down pour of rain and there was a smell of peat in the air coming off the garden soil.  Bats were flying around here home and, in the distance, she could here an owl calling. 

I wrote back to the lady and told her, if only once in her life, she and her husband should go out at night, when there was a full moon, and stand by the side of a calm lake.  The ray of moon light, in front of her, as she walked the side of the water, would allow her to see all the ducks that were on the water.  Ducks, when not feeding, react differently and if they call, at night, in the thin night air, they sound differently too.  The night air seems to magnify the night sounds.

I love to be out at dusk and, over a two year period, IU decided to do a project on foxes. 

After a lot ofsearching, making sure no one could see me, I found a foxe's earth, picked my time to sit and watch, when I knew there would be no one around to watch me, and waited. 

Before undertaking my solitary watch, there were several things to do first.  The most important was to have the breeze of wind in my face, so that the foxes could not smell me; being down wind would be disastrous.  I had to position my body so that it could stay in the same spot for a long time for the slightest movement would frighten the foxes off. 

I made sure that I had on extra clothing, in case there was a quick change in the weather at a crucial time on my watch, and I had made sure that any traces of aftershave were gone too so that the fox's keen smell would not be able to trace me being in it's territory. 

I sat, in silence, for a couple of hours and, on this occasion, there was no sight of a fox. 

I was not going to be put off and, after work, night after night, I took time out to try and get a good look of the fox.

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and still there was no sighting of the foxes.  One evening, quite 'out of the blue,' a Vixen popped her head out of the 'earth.'

My heart began to race for I expected the dog fox to appear next.  The Vixen, on high alert, looked this way and that-sniffing the air-then darted down the hole as if something had disturbed her. 

Minutes later, she was out of the hole again and, now holding my breath in case I could be heard, I saw a small snout sniffing the air. It was a fox cub and it eventually came out of the hole and began to run round the feet of its mum as if in playful mode. 

At that time, I did not have camera but, if I had had one, I would not have been able to take photos for I would have frightened the animals off.  Never the less, for what was about to happen was a photographers' once in a lifetime shot.

The cub fox was followed, as they came out of the  'earth,' by more cubs and I think there were three or maybe five cubs at the mouth of the fox earth. 

I was now to become one of the most privileged sightseeing people for the cubs played, rolled and nipped one another, in a playful manner, for quite some time.

Now and again., the vixen's head went into the air, as if trying to listen, and the cubs were quickly sent down the hole. 

Time and time again, the cubs were allowed to come to the surface and go into their playful pastime. 

To see the animals, in their world, rather than one contrived in a zoo or some other form of controlled sighting, was, for me, the most wonderful thing. 

After a long time, again to my great surprise, the vixen took the cubs, by the scruff of the neck, and put them down the hole.  When the good mum had done her duty, she ran off and, although I did not know it at that time, she had gone to look for supper.  There was no sign of the dog fox and I wondered if it had been killed. 

Later, the vixen came back, with some food in her mouth, I think it was a rabbit, and I hoped that she was going to give the food to her children at the top of the 'earth' but I was out of luck because something disturbed the family and I did not see them again that night.

I had forgotten about this sighting and was pleased to have had the chance to re live the experience if only in my mind's eye and was grateful to the lady who had written to me to tell me of her late night experiences when she was trying to look for the meteors.   

I hope you enjoyed reading about the fox family.

John.         





     

       

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