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A healthy fox with beautiful winter fur was at the feeding ground on Friday, getting “its share“. We will see foxes more frequently in nature too now, they move around more because in February the mating period begins and a mate must be found, sometimes fought for too. Since autumn foxes have been leading a solitary life.

 

Moving along the fox tracks in snow we can learn this and that about them too. The female, or vixen, squats on urinating while the male lifts his leg like a dog. The excrements are often left in well visible places: on a path or a higher spot – even on a tree stump. The  fox droppings, twisted  and with a tapered end, smell quite strongly. The fox "perfumes“ them with secretions from glands near its tail. In fox language an important message is left there for sisters and brothers of its species. What we can do with this information is another matter, but curiosity is satisfied.

 

For observing its surroundings the fox’s hearing and sense of smell are extremely sharp. The sight is quite good. However, a fox often does not see an observer standing motionless – but on the slightest movement there is an immediate reaction if the smell has not betrayed the observer earlier already. To that come an excellent memory and a nearly unbelievably quick reaction speed…

 

Foxes are adaptable, and in winter all-eaters, omnivores – the menu consists of small rodents from their own hunting, leftovers from large predators, carrion and, if so happens, vegetarian matter too. In the wild boar camera we have seen how foxes eat grain, and the hunters have many feeding grounds in the forests.