Last year I saw Foxes all the time. I found one sleeping on the doorstep, Billy met one behind the house and they just stood looking at each other for a while, and I saw another wandering about on the roof of the nearby Primary School. Otherwise, if I looked out of the front window at night, more often than not I'd see one or two sauntering about. They were as common as Seagulls or Pigeons.
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However, this year it's very different. I've seen a couple, but nothing like last year, and I'm wondering if the Green/Labour Council haven't been carrying out some surreptitious poisoning programme. I'm sure they wouldn't voluntarily have left Brighton en masse, to try their luck elsewhere.
I don't really have a view about urban Foxes. Towns and cities have become as much their homes as ours. I wasn't so keen on them in France when one killed all my 15 Hens during a night of carnage, but here they just tidy-up left-over McBurgers or Kebabs that even the local drunks wouldn't eat.
In fact I think there's something quite healthy about wild Foxes roaming the streets at night; no doubt people in Alaska think much the same about Polar Bears.
p.s. The other thing I've noticed that's missing this year are Milkmen on their electric floats. I fear they may now be a thing of the past.
"surrreptious poisoning programme"? Highly unlikely as poisons are not selective. The Council wouldn't want all the cat/dog owners of Brighton and their hamster coming down on them.
ReplyDeleteMilkmen on floats? They vanished at least twenty years ago. Make that thirty.
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I saw a milk float last year. None this year.
DeleteWFH
DeleteI buy mine in 1 litre Tetra packs; 6 at a time from Sainsbury's. No wonder there are no deliveries.
DeleteMilk delivery has long been history here, although perhaps you can Uber Eats a milk delivery....for triple the price.
ReplyDeleteFoxes are a terrible pest here, killing many small native animals, never mind fowl.
DeletePeople here worry that they kill their Cats, but I don't think they do. They'd much prefer a double McSomething.
DeleteDuring the lockdown in the world, wild animals invaded the cities. Probably now that everything has calmed down they are more careful.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter lived in area that was prone to flooding. Wisely, she built her lovely house on a slight hill, but when the lower ground flooded she used to be invaded by wild animals looking for safety.
DeleteFoxes are a species that never made it here across the Irish Sea..However , we do have an abundance of cats that help to cull the smaller animals and seagulls to redistribute the rubbish around the streets.
ReplyDeleteManx Cats? Yes, Seagulls are very adept at untidying.
DeleteI don't think I have ever seen a live fox. We have them here, in the hills areas mostly where they pick off people's chickens.
ReplyDeleteI think Chicken is their food of choice. Unfortunately they also enjoy chasing and killing them for fun.
DeleteFox numbers here are at an all time high, they are causing issues, digging up gardens, chasing cats and dogs, at night they sit in the road and we have to drive round them. The local faceache page is 50/50 on lovers and haters. I love them, they are beautiful, but they are wild and I would rather not see them in our village.
ReplyDeletePerhaps our have relocated to Hants.
DeleteYou have several comments in reply to your post, or to the comments of others, that make absolutely no sense to me. Anyway, there's still plenty of foxes around here.
ReplyDeleteWe still have them, but not like before. I'm sure something must have been going on.
DeletePlenty of foxes around here....and glass bottle milk deliveries.
ReplyDeleteThe dairy we buy from uses electric vans, not milk floats
I liked the old milk floats. They made a wonderful sound with all the bottles rattling. Years ago I used to set my watch by his stopping at our house, he was within seconds every morning.
DeleteMy milkman delivers my milk in a plastic container at 5 in the morning from the same van he collects it from at the dairy an hour earlier. I neither see nor hear him. As for foxes - when we lived on the farm we had an old chap who had evaded the hunt for years - and if one of our chickens died we always left it out for him and it always disappeared. Long live urban and countryside foxes say I - they have as much right as we have to be on this earth. Yes - they do tend to kill indiscrimately if they get the chance but surely you agree they are not alone in this at present.
ReplyDeleteAll creatures have the right to live alongside us, and 'nature watching' is one of my greatest delights. Only occasionally do those creatures annoy me, and losing 15 hens overnight was one such occasion.
DeleteFrom what I saw on the news the other day they’ve all migrated to Downing Street to become playmates for Larry😊
ReplyDeleteThey are classed as a pest here
Didn't Larry see him off? Well done that Cat.
DeleteThey are a beautiful creature, aren't they...my niece lost 30 chickens to them in a night. My sister has given up chickens at all at this point. No milkmen here, but I remember, back in the day, the lidded tin box on our front porch and collecting our glass bottles of milk each morning.
ReplyDeleteI gave up keeping hens after that night of devastation. Recently I had a few more but the neighbour's dogs killed them.
DeleteHere in the suburbs of St Louis we have a lot of foxes but many, many of them have such severe mange. I think there must be a large population of them around here. I saw a mangy one once running across the street in front of me. I was really taken aback and it took me a while to figure out what animal I was looking at. It really looked pitiful with its fur to the point of almost being gone.
ReplyDeleteOur Foxes are generally very healthy looking. In the old days when they were hunted, the old and infirm were killed, which meant for a much healthier population of Foxes. These days if a farmer has a problem he gasses them underground, indiscriminately killing all at home.
DeleteThere could be a connection between the absence of foxes and the absence of milkmen. Perhaps the milkmen have hoovered up all the foxes to make stylish stoles for fashionable ladies and cross-dressers. After all, there's not much profit in milk rounds any more.
ReplyDeleteMore likely that they've all been run-over by extra quiet Milk Floats.
DeleteLots of country foxes here…you hear them but seldom see them
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like in France. We hear them all the time, but never see them. The same with Red Deer.
DeleteOver the years, I have seen a red fox behind my house. Lovely creatures. The stone walls and woodland surroundings, house lots of small animals, plus there are wild turkeys with their young roaming about. I've always liked the fact that the fox works to manage the population of other wild animals. One street over from me, a woman raises chickens. She had to fortify her hen house. Not only fox but dogs and coyote were raiding the hen house.
ReplyDeleteThe wire around my Chicken run was buried in the ground, and covered the whole top, but still he got in. They always find a way to a free meal.
DeleteUrban foxes are nothing new, we frequently saw them of an evening when I lived in Oxford more than 50 years ago, and one of our neighbours found one in her lounge after leaving her back door open for just a short while some 30 years ago.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I would rather see an urban fox that any of the huge number of feral cats that are so destructive to our bird population.
When I lived in London (65-69) a friend had one that spent his daytimes on her garage roof, so, as you say, it's nothing new.
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