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Foxes keep
tryst |
20.02.1999
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Ó
Michael Woods |
We had our first fall of
snow last week. It did not amount to much but there was an
overnight frost and the cover next morning was crisp and
just deep enough for footprints to register clearly. So I
walked around the fields to see who had been out and about.
Among the ubiquitous prints of lolloping rabbits, there was
a straight line of dainty fox pawprints. I started to follow
them, hoping to come upon traces of a successful hunt for
prey, but instead finding that the tracks were being
paralleled by a second set. Two foxes had been trotting
together and their trails ran side by side farther than I
was able to follow.
I was not surprised to
find the parallel tracks because on two occasions in the
previous week I had seen a pair of foxes running together,
with the noticeably larger dog fox following the vixen. I
have also heard foxes calling at night. They were making an
unholy racket, called 'clicketing', which may have been the
vixen rejecting overtures from the overeager dog fox, but I
have not heard the eerie, so-called "vixen's
scream" which is not uttered exclusively by the vixen
and seems to be used for keeping in touch over a distance.
All in all, the signs confirm that this is the time for
mating. The vixen is in season for only three days. The dog
fox must follow her closely to ensure that he is not
cuckolded by another male and so fail to become father of
the cubs that he will help the vixen to raise. The same
pattern of male closely following every move of the female
is also becoming apparent in many birds at this time of
year. St Valentine's day is not long past but the emotion is
not devotion but jealousy.
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