It's a long time since I provided photos of the foxes or reported on their fortunes.
We rarely know the fate of our foxes. They just stop coming and after a few weeks you realise they aren't coming back... Psycho stopped coming late winter. We think he may have become an RTA,as one of our neighbours reported a dead fox in one of the parking bays along the street that had been progressively ground into the tarmac too long ago for me to go and check if it was him. That split lower canine that (we think) gave him his godawful temper should have provided a good identification feature. It's always sad when they go.
However, Big Whitey, who is now four years old and demonstrating all the resilience and native toughness that you would hope to see from a fox - he's been carrying a permanent disability in his left rear leg since adolescence and a hole in his right ear courtesy of Psycho, notwithstanding which he remains a dominant territorial dog fox who we believe has bred with both Double Top and the current vixen, Rip - is still with us. Large, slightly paler than the norm and with a relentlessly jaunty upcurve to his fine white-tipped brush, I would have to concede his intelligence is not quite as high as that of either of his successive vixens: but his character can't be denied and I was exceptionally glad he made it though another winter to still be with us now.
The photos of Whitey that I'm going to post show how ragged and seemingly unwell a perfectly healthy moulting fox can look.
Rip, our tiny current vixen, has cubs somewhere: she is obviously lactating and takes all the food we can give her, caching some, wolfing (foxing?) some and carrying some away presumably to the earth. Like Double Top she has developed a message for me: thrown a piece of chicken she will pick it up, pause, drop it and look me right in the eye until I throw a second piece, at which point she picks up both and trots off with them.
There is very little fractiousness between the pair as they are fed (one reason I believe they are a pair) with both occasionally letting the other take a morsel that was clearly directed at them, without demur. (Psycho, by contrast, never let anyone else be fed while he was present.)
Anyway, here are some spring fox pix.
John
Big Whitey in full winter coat, January
Big Whitey towards the end of March
Rip confirms she has cubs, towards the end of March
Rip feeding - a careful sniff at the food first
Big Whitey with a blackish shoulder. After much study it seems this is his undercoat moulting slower than long white guard hairs of his winter "dress shirt"