My location has had, and continues to have, a very active urban fox population. So many that tussles break out, very noisily and very regularly - late at night, over territory and breeding rights.
We had a spate of shoe thefts, where laddo would leave the conservatory door open, and foxes would steal in and half inch one of his very expensive designer trainers, much to his annoyance and my amusement. Till one of mine went walkies.
That stopped for a while, but the foxless peace of my garden was shattered the other week, when a new very healthy, very bold, very forward - young lady I think - decided it would be fun to stick two of its paws over the threshold of the french doors (left open due to the heatwave) and scare the bejesus out of Nicole.
It so happens that Fifi Mk 2 is due to arrive in the next three weeks, and being a very bold and very brave, and very naughty young lady herself (a two year old Goldie) I have ordered new gates and am making the garden escape proof, and probably fox proof (unless of course I decide to keep chickens, and then nothing is fox proof).
Given the short window of opportunity, and the fact I found my video camera has motion sensing shooting, I decided to play David Attenborough, and capture my resident urban carnivore on film.
I have had numerous failures, (bait sneaked out from under my nose) caused by timing issues and bad lighting, bad luck etc. However, finally the deed was done and here is my natural history masterpiece.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynnlSMOYYxU
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You been out in the Delorean again?
"A Surrey Garden, Wed 30th July 2104"
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I have often thought I would like to leave a motion camera in the house when the dog is in on his own to see what he gets up to.
Being a lazy lab he probably lies in the one place for 4 hours but I am not convinced he doesn't have a sneak about the house.
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>> I have often thought I would like to leave a motion camera in the house
>> when the dog is in on his own to see what he gets up to.
Dont. I know someone who did that, and was horrified to find out his dog went into the hall and laid there, miserably and pathetically staring at the door waiting for the return.
Ruined his life, hardly went anywhere where he couldn't take the dog ever again.
Ignorance is sometimes bliss.
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>> Dont. I know someone who did that, and was horrified to find out his dog
>> went into the hall and laid there, miserably and pathetically staring at the door waiting
>> for the return.
There was a TV programme about what dogs do when they're left alone:
www.channel4.com/programmes/dogs-their-secret-lives/4od#3624538
Last edited by: John Boy on Fri 1 Aug 14 at 12:10
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>> I have often thought I would like to leave a motion camera in the house
if you've got a smartphone you can download apps such as LapseIt which you setup to take a photo every x seconds (x >= 1):
www.lapseit.com/
Not motion detect though, so might take a bit of searching through the capture to find anything interesting.
Last edited by: Focusless on Fri 1 Aug 14 at 12:09
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The iPhone app for motion detect, and a bazillion other features, for nothing, is Presence. You can as ever elect to spend if you want even more bazillion features but the free one is more than adequate for what has been described here.
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Zero's fox is a pretty young thing. But they are charmless feral animals at close quarters I think.
Couldn't help noticing it took a quick slash on the place when it had eaten all the chicken.
Compliments to the chef perhaps?
:o}
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>>But they are charmless feral animals at close quarters I think. <<
So do I - at any distance. But, of course, I come from West Somerset.
Why not set up a camera to see if you can get a movie of a few cuddly rats?
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>> Why not set up a camera to see if you can get a movie of
>> a few cuddly rats?
I can't because I don't have any cuddly rats in my garden, the charmless feral foxes killed them all.
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>> the charmless feral foxes killed them all.
Charmless, but far from useless.
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We have foxes on the allotment. No rats though for the same reason.
Had a hedgehog in the garden at the weekend, the first I've seen this year. they are becomingly worryingly scarce
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I have one too who visits the garden every evening as it gets dark. I feed him a half a tin of meaty cat food daily and some fresh water too!
Pat
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In the holiday village I use in France, there seems to be a semi-tame hedgehog who comes out after dark, and goes begging on patios where lights are showing, or there's quiet activity going on. If things are too noisy he doesn't show. This year I got visited by him once whilst reading (The Long Mars by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter since you ask), so I gave him some scraps. Last year he managed to be crossing a footpath in the dark which I was walking down barefoot. Ouch. He let out quite a growl, but shuffled off unharmed.
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>>. Last year he managed to be crossing a footpath in the dark which I was walking down barefoot. Ouch. He let out quite a growl, but shuffled off unharmed<<
It's karma Alanovic, he obviously didn't approve of your scraps!
Pat
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>> I have often thought I would like to leave a motion camera in the house
Did that with the cat when we shut it in the kitchen at night. It went out immediately after we shut it in there and re-appeared just before we opened the door again. It seems happy enough.
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I'd rather not know what my cat gets up to. The neighbours tell me she sleeps in their garage a lot of the time, and I haven't seen a rat in ages. Just so long as she doesn't bother bringing the remains home.
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The fox in my garden...... - VxFan
