A VERY rare moment ...
... a young vixen about to take food from my hand ... I do have film footage taken a few years back of another vixen taking food by hand, but that was very different. I had fed the cub for about 18 months before she would trust me. This particular vixen (wild dog foxes will hardly ever approach humans) I have known for about a month! I noticed her following us (Cruisedog and I on nightly cliff walk, early hours) and put some food down which she took a few minutes after we left (observed upwind a hundred yards away). Since then, she has become a 'regular' and has started bringing a companion (unknown sex) with her who stands some way off. The past few nights, she has become more and more confident and has even sniffed noses with a tethered Cruisedog! She snatched a piece of food from my hand the previous night, but I thought at the time she had made an error, thinking I had dropped it. Luckily, I had the camcorder turned on this time and the above photo is a still taken from a vid clip. Most of you will have heard of or read reports of urban foxes (Bristol foxes are well-documented) taking food by hand, but it is extraordinarily rare for a rural fox to do this - especially one that is not pregnant, injured or old.
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