I had a flying visit to see my parents in Wales on Good Friday, with a tip off that a couple of foxes had been seen in the woods behind my mum's house. So I brought along my DSLR camera trap. A survey of the scene didn't offer too many opportunities for a good composition other than the trunk of a fallen tree, so as rain started to fall I quickly set up. Too quickly, unfortunately, with the result I got the depth of field wrong as I'm not used to setting up quite so close. The images turned out a little soft :(
Anyway, I thought the chances of getting the foxes in such a limited field of view at the first attempt would be unlikley. However, I should never have doubted the magical abilities of my favoured bait placed just in the bark, out of sight, on the back side of the log. It worked a treat and a beautiful dark backed vixen turned up exactly in the place I'd hoped. She even stared intently at the camera before hoovering up the morsels of bait. Simply magic.
Click on the gallery for higher resolution images
No doubt there will be some people who's immediate reaction will be negative to the presence of a local fox, but keep in mind, these beautiful, intelligent animals spend most of their year keeping the local rodent population down. If you leave discarded food in a place they can access then it's your fault if you find your rubbish scattered about in the morning. Put your food waste out on the morning of collection to prevent scavenging, which more often than not be by a cat.
To those who are charmed by having such fabulous animal visit your garden, please don't feed them processed food. It's bad for our health, but very bad for wildlife. Some pet food, meat scraps, a plate of honey and they may visit your patio !! Nothing with salt please.