Friendly Fox

Not long after we moved in to our Florida house, we saw a fox go through the yard. We were shocked. If you didn’t know, we moved here from a house in a city neighborhood in Pennsylvania. The most wildlife we saw there was an occasional cardinal.

As you might tell from the photo, this image was from the “old days”, before digital cameras. We had to put in this stuff called film into the camera in order to take pictures. I really don’t miss those times.

Back to our fox.

This fox would come to our yard quite often, usually in the evenings. She would sometimes have a young one follow her. One night, we had thrown out some bread for the birds and they didn’t eat it all. Out of the woods came the fox and started snacking on the bread. The young one would not venture into the yard; he stayed near the edge of the woods. Once in a while, he would let out a sort of a cry or whimper calling to his mother to return to him.

Mother fox ate her fill and off she went.

We continued to throw bread out and often the fox would return. Then, the most unlikely thing happened. A possum was in the yard eating the bread when the fox arrived. We thought things were going to get ugly. I thought the fox might make a possum sandwich with the bread. Instead, the fox walked up, right beside the possum and shared the bread. Unbelievable!

A few days later, as we were having coffee on the lanai, a rabbit came racing through the yard with a fox hot on his tail. They both disappeared into the woods. We figured the rabbit was a goner. Not long after, the rabbit came hopping through the yard, alive and well.

It seems the fox did not fare as well. A neighbor said she saw a dead fox on the road, a victim of a car collision. Sad to say we have not seen a fox in the yard since.