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Saturday, 26 September 2009

A mother's devotion ...

was seen on the cliffs tonight. The February batch of cubs are now fully grown at around seven months now and are all in fine condition for the coming winter. However, the vixen will not give up tending for her offspring and if they are slow at learning hunting or foraging skills, she will still take food to them. For a few nights now, I have had a vixen appear in the same place where no other animals are evident and wait for me to throw food. She then sits by it and waits and about twenty yards away, the Cruisedog and I also wait. She constantly looks around until her 'cub' dashes out - usually with a scream to give it courage - to snatch the food and back away, fearsome that another fox will appear. The cub is very small and extremely thin and it is with great satisfaction we return home knowing that it has at least had a good feed for one night. It is widely believed that once the cubs are weaned, the parents will take them hunting for a few weeks to learn skills and then leave them ... this is far from the case and the vixen is a particularly caring parent ...