I think we have foxes living under our garden shed. I first noticed the scratching in the soil a week or so ago. It didn’t look like very much excavation had occured...
I think we have foxes living under our garden shed. I first noticed the scratching in the soil a week or so ago. It didn't look like very much excavation had occured and the hole didn't appear to go very far. But now we have more earth-moving going on. Then today I found the large bone, obviously the remains of someone's Sunday roast, dumped under the bench up there. Squatters?
Fox sightings have been down this last couple of years, and even the plaintive screaming in early spring seems to have subsided of late. There was a time, seven or eight years ago, when you couldn't leave the house without nearly tripping over not one, but usually several foxes, all brazen and cocksure. Then they vanished. I had thought that mange had done for many of them, and certainly there have been some moth-eaten examples limping through South London streets. But now I wonder whether all the recent garden make-overs in my area have seen them off.
When we moved here 10 years ago, a pleasing number of neighbouring gardens was unkempt to the point of dereliction. Even when my immediate neighbour poisoned his entire back garden down to brown London clay to eradicate the nose-high false-oat grass, I could still see the bramble clumps in the next garden up the road. Over the back fence was an alien country. I knew there were houses over there somewhere, in the next street, but they were all but invisible through the nettles, living and dead plum trees and sprawling ivy.
Ironic, then, that our garden, when we moved in, was just bare clipped lawn, a fair amount of old concrete paths, and naked chain-link fence. Now we have several rambling thickets of rose, ivy, clematis and vine, a 'secret' sun-lit patio beyond the pergola (I'm still extremely proud of my construction), a pond and various garden beds. But elsewhere in the neighbourhood, the dense diversity of sheltered hidey-holes has been replaced by ... well, quite a lot of clipped lawn, wood chippings and the modern equivalent of concrete: decking.
Where the foxes used to visit us, then go home to their hidden dens, now they seem to be making our hectic plot their base camp, while they forage elsewhere.
Gardeners' World Web User
09/06/2010 at 18:05
i have a family of foxes that daily come into my garden,mum fox has had baby-cubs [3],realy lovely and sweet...sadly though for 10 days now i havent seen dad fox i hope he is ok....
with all the news at the moment about the fox attack,,,im now wondering should i stop them coming into my garden,,will be difficult as i back onto woods and there are many foxes in our area,also many of my neighbours on a daily basic feed the foxes either in there back gardens or they leave food out the front of there gardens,i know lots of people will dissagree but its lovely to watch and also to monitor there behaviour and patterns of movement.the only thing i really dont like is the screaming they do,are they fighting?? is it aggression,or playing,as at moment the screaming is very loud and it sounds like someone is getting hurt,is this why dad fox has dissappeared.?.?.?.
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