Fox Watch

Lucy’s column for September 23.
Foxlo..1
We’ve been on fox watch for the past fortnight, which means hail, rain, and even that rare itzy bitzy shining moment, has found us huddled in a corner of the copse – okay, two fir trees and a bush – waiting for a special visitor.
Oh, we’ve fed foxes for years, and viewed their nocturnal dining from a strategic spot which involved a bit of curtain-twitching on our part, and some furtive foraging on theirs, with them taking to their heels if they realised they were being spied on. But a couple of weeks ago, in broad daylight, a cheeky little blighter bounced into a bit of garden inches from the back door. And there he sat, brazen as you like, almost daring us to approach him. Which we did. And he didn’t move a muscle.
Instead, this nearly-grown cub daintily and delicately took food from our hands. Mind you, it was a better class of fare. First came the Sunday roast lamb bone, which he proceeded to bury. But perhaps some instinct had told him that I’d had a purge on the pantry, because he sat on his haunches waiting for the pudding – Cadbury’s flake, long forgotten and turning white, and chocolate digestives so soggy he could be forgiven for thinking they had already been dunked.
We spoon-fed him for nigh-on 20 minutes before he disappeared. We’re now worried that he may have suffered death by chocolate, because despite all our observation efforts, he hasn’t been back.
But there’s always somebody to "top that".
St Francis of Assissi can eat his heart out when it comes to our friends Lil and daughter Dorn Bancroft, the Saints Francesca of Chaddo. Their neighbouring gardens in the midst of suburbia are wildlife havens. Recently, and with a little bit of help from the gas board which had to demolish her fireplace, Dorn rescued two baby squirrels trapped in the chimney breast. And such was their appreciation that, even on returning them to the waiting parents after a couple of days of comestibles and cuddles, they were at her back door and in the house before she could shout "Nuts!".
They are also fox afficianados, and I couldn’t wait to relate our close encounter. Follow that, I thought. But wait for it. One night, as Dorn and son Harris sat in their garden, surrounded by stray cats, leaping frogs, squirrels pleading to be taken into care, in strolled a fox. Quick as a flash, he was in her conservatory, emerging seconds later with her best slippers. Which he proceeded to tear to shreds.
A few days later, in the middle of the day, Lil – who actually buys grapes for the squirrels, has more bird feeders than an endangered species sanctuary, and actively encourages a good slug-eating toad when she sees one – returned from pottering in the front garden to find her best shoes, chewed up, in the back. A fox had not only been in. He’d fetched them from her bedroom. To add insult to injury, he’d tiddled in them!
But, amphibians apart, isn’t wildlife watching wonderful? Friend and fellow columnist Anton Rippon takes great delight in clocking not only frogs, which make me phobic, in their special pond positioned next to his smokers’ gazebo – which has a ditto effect on him - but field mice, as well as the birds and the bees which take sanctuary at Ripponville.
Friends Annie and Dave Colville, and Phyl and Derek Lyon, have followed us in the fox-feeding frenzy, but so far, none of them have fed them manky chocolate from their hands. And it’s going to be a struggle to keep up with Dorn and Lil. But not one of us is going to compare with the recent South African experience of daughter-in-law Claire who, as recounted last week, came face to face with a hyena at her safari cabin door.
end