Broken Tail: She's a beauty
So the sun was out most of the day and therefore it was fox sighting weather. Today, Broken Tail emerged with far more confidence than previous sightings, and quickly made her way over to Sam's honey dish to enjoy a little of the sweet stuff. In the above image you can see the slight kink in her tail but the small white tip is obscured.
If you've been following my fox blogs you might be aware of my uncertainty regarding the gender and relationship of Broken Tail to the other foxes. I had been settling on Broken Tail being a young male fox, but the observant will have noticed this text referring to Broken Tail as "her". Well .... after re-examining some camera trap images from the last couple of months I was able to recognise Broken Tail and found images of her urinating (presummably) twice in the same spot and she was squatting on each occasion. See image below.
Broken Tail squatting to pee. Note the slight kink in tail and small white tip.
Now this raises the question of her relationship to Sam Fox who is clearly the dominant vixen in the territory. I think the likely answer is that Broken Tail is possibly one of Sam's offspring from last year. Females are known to stay in their natal territory and often live in a family group.
Let's see what further clues emerge over time.