(Image pinched off the webz somewhere)
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Ol’ Robbo was delighted this morning to spot a red fox loitering about the tree line behind the neighbor’s house. Decanter Dog spotted it, too, meaning she spent the next half hour running round the Port Swiller Manor back yard shrieking at the top of her lungs.
The fox was hovering right in front of the spot where a vixen raised a couple of kits last year, which makes me wonder if this is maybe the same vixen or perhaps one of the kits. Our neighbors kept them pretty well fed with table scraps last year, so I would think there’d be a strong incentive to return to the spot.
Looking up some background information, I find that the red fox has an average lifespan of only two to four years, which I must say rayther surprises me. I wonder if this average is artificially low due to all the foxes that get squished on the roads (at least round here) and that individuals who are able to avoid such calamity can actually live somewhat longer. It doesn’t seem right, somehow, that something so handsome should have such a fleeting time on Earth.
(I know what a pest foxes can be to poultry owners (such as my Sistah) but from my standpoint they are purely decorative.)
Anyhoo, I hope this one settles in and I get to watch another generation grow up this spring.
Rodental UPDATE: Just by way of idle curiosity since I see so very many of them, Ol’ Robbo decided to also dig out comparative information on grey squirrels. It would appear that, although some can live much, much longer, the average lifespan of the common tree rat is only 10 to 12 months.
This little nugget bothers Ol’ Robbo not a’tall. In fact, I take a certain grim delight in recognizing the latest new entrant into the feeder-raiding lists attempting to overcome my foolproof hanging arrangement and failing, sometimes getting quite violently angry about it. Greedy, flea-bitten little blighters.
The Port Stands At Your Elbow 
4 comments
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March 23, 2021 at 12:05 pm
The Lurker
I think that a lot of foxes succumb to mange. We had one hanging about a year or so ago that had a horrible case of it. It was heartbreaking to watch. I tried leaving out some of the hound’s heartworm medicine and some agricultural antibiotics for it, but suspect that the raccoons and possums got it instead. It would have been kinder to shoot the poor devil, but my socialist betters consider that to be a misdemeanor.
March 23, 2021 at 1:45 pm
Robbo
Ugh. That’s too bad.
We had a doe turn up late one fall. She’d obviously just been hit by a car – one of her rear legs was dangling and useless. I watched her hobbling slowly and painfully about for some weeks and thought about getting Animal Control to come out and do something. Then she vanished late winter and I assumed either they had or else she’d starved. (It was a bad winter.)
But then she turned up again in the spring. Her leg was still bent but she could move about on it comfortably. AND she had a fawn in tow.
Just one of those things.
March 24, 2021 at 9:55 am
rbj1
We had a couple of chickens once, for the eggs. Not a secure coop. First one hen went, then the other. The young rooster was free range because the hens pecked at him. Literally henpecked. He survived with an evening generous amount of chicken feed. Until one night we went to the movies and dad forgot to feed him first. Just a couple of feathers left.
The dogs never tangled with the fox, the fowl, not so much.
March 24, 2021 at 10:45 am
sleepybeth
We had a pair of foxes that I would see roaming about the neighborhood here and there maybe 4 years ago. I guess now I know where they went.
Poor foxes.
Squirrels we have by the gross, but they entertain the pup, so I’m fine with them.