A couple of videos of our foxes from Christmas until April. We believe these are the same two foxes starring throughout both videos. The Fox with the bushy tail is a dog fox, while the fox with the skinny tail is the vixen.
Hopefully the next video will be some fox cubs. Now the sun is out, I am assuming they will be venturing out from their den.
We have several rabbit holes under and through the compost heap. Often, they get taken over by foxes and badgers. Here is a video of one rabbit digging some earth out of its burrow. Instead of digging and scattering the dirt into a mound behind itself, this rabbit also pushes the soil forwards using its front paws, spreading it out into a low flat low layer. Very neat. It worked alone over a couple of days. Starting just before sunset on January 28th, and then over a period of 40 minutes on the morning of the 29th. It was amazingly neat. Finally in the last minutes of digging, a Redwing bird comes and helps out.
Rosemary spotted a Grey Heron near the field pond. I rushed out to take a photograph. I was far from it, and it was standing down the slope to the pond, so little of the Heron was in sight. I grabbed a few frames from about100 meters away, and then walked towards it. Of course, it flew off.
I looked at the frames I took, not technically good, but you could see it was eating a frog or toad. So worth keeping them. I think it was a Toad, and so does Rosemary.
The wildlife camera threw up an interesting find. In between the rabbits, muntjac deer and the foxes, was an Otter. We have seen it only once. Maybe it was exploring the pond. There are several ponds in the immediate vicinity, many with fish. Our pond dries out in the Summer so not suitable for fish. Anyway, nice to see it, a change from Rabbits and Foxes.
Back in the late spring, early summer of 2022, we had a skulk of foxes in the field bringing up four fox cubs. We believe it was two vixens, with a couple of cubs each. Normally we would see two cubs at a time, but on occasion another two cubs would come from the other side of the mound and join in with the play. One set of cubs disappeared during the summer. We assume (hope) they moved on somewhere else. The cubs are now fully grown, and we have seen them since this video was put together.
You can watch the short edition, a little over 5 minutes, or the long two and a quarter hour video. The longer video also stars Badger, Muntjac deer, Squirrels, rabbits, Great spotted woodpecker and various other birds.
The Highlights
Five minutes and 52 seconds showing the highlights of the cubs.
We have had a dry and very cold few days in the United Kingdom. The temperature in Kingswood dropped to -11C and has been below freezing all night and day. I haven’t felt anything as cold as this since we first moved here in the late 1980s. Despite this cold patch, the UK average temperature for 2022 averaged more than 10C, the first time ever it has topped 10C. The cold weather went on until the 18th, but of course warmed up for Christmas.
I grabbed a few pictures of the frost patterns on cobwebs and vegetation using my mobile phone.
I was up at 4.00 UTC to see a rare event. The planet Mars was occulated by the moon. The next time this happens will be January 2025. I took around 80 photographs, discarded many, and superimposed each image on top of each other. You can see the moon in the center of the image, and images of Mars on the top left getting closer and closer to the moon. Eventually Mars was behind the moon. This occurred at around 4.59. I went back to bed, intending to photograph the moon when Mars reappeared on the bottom right. I was a little late for this and missed the initial image of Mars reappearing an hour later at 5.58.
I was lucky, a noticeably clear night in Buckinghamshire, though cool at -5C. The down jacket did little to keep my hands warm.
Unusually we had the Kingswood Firework party this year on the actual fifth of November. But, as is usual, we had a magnificent bonfire & fireworks & BBQ. No guy to burn this year, despite plenty of candidate effigies, such as a lettuce, a Liz or a Boris. The weather was a little damp, although the rain did hold out to the end of the firework display. Those finishing off the burgers, bangers, beer and wine did have to shelter under the canopies when there was a short torrential downpour.
For a few, the evening ended in a Kingswood house where a considerable volume of whisky etc was consumed, amidst much camaraderie.
The second of our two local pubs, the Akeman (formerly the Crooked Billet), the one we don’t often visit, has a vegetable garden. Planning permission was granted several years ago, but COVID came along and delayed the opening of the vegetable patch. This year all changed, and the garden was planted with veg, while plastic poly tunnels were erected to grow heritage tomatoes. The intention is to supply fresh vegetables to several of the Oakman inns. We went with neighbours to an open day with the gardeners and management on hand to explain their vision. It looked impressive, but would it be able to supply much veg? Who knows? Let us see what happens next year.
Of course, it would have been rude not to have had a glass of beer in the bar.
I missed several days of fox cubs, they run the battery down on the camera in only a few days. One night the fox cubs spent the whole of darkness playing! The Infrared light soon depleted the battery! The batteries changed and, on the 4th and 5th of May the Fox cubs are still around. A little bigger, now steady on their feet and much more active.