A few days ago a fox vaulted over the fence and landed on the two cats asleep just outside the back door. Fur flew. The poor beast didn't stand a chance.
A few days ago a fox vaulted over the fence and landed on the two cats asleep just outside the back door. Fur flew. The poor beast didn't stand a chance. It stopped half way up the lawn and turned to see what exploding ammunition dump it had fallen into. There was a brief stand-off, then it bolted. The bristling cats padded nervously about for a few minutes, then came indoors doing that nonchalant shrug thing, which means 'Pah, you should have seen the other guy'.
When we first moved to south-east London, 25 years ago, and discovered so many urban foxes here, I often wondered whether they posed a threat to our cats. It did not take me long to work out that foxes, like most predators, are cowards, and despite the obvious size difference, they would much rather take easy pickings.
It is an oft-forgotten rule, but the answer to the question 'what do carnivores eat?' is not 'meat' or 'other animal', but 'whatever they can get'. But this does not mean they are constantly on the ferocious hunt for prey. It means they will take whatever they can get easily, without a fight, without a struggle and without much danger to themselves.
In the wild, foxes are often scavengers, eating road-kill, or doing the evolutionarily laudable task of picking off the young, the infirm, the diseased and the dying. If a fox is going to hunt something live and kicking, it will pick on something much smaller than itself. Much smaller than a sleeping cat even.
See more comments...
