Autobiography of an Anglophile: The Curious Incident of the Fox in the Night-time

Monday, August 29, 2011

The Curious Incident of the Fox in the Night-time

Image via Google

The urban fox is not an irregular occurrence in my city. There is a particular specimen that roams around our neighborhood. I've even given him a name: Robin, because the Disney Robin Hood was a fox. I've only spotted him a couple of times, and it's always been from a substantial distance.

Then the other evening, I had a real wildlife encounter.

My friend Liz had kindly provided me with a lift home when we saw Robin directly across the street from my house. He was digging through a large dumpster as he scavenged for food. I know what they say about feeding wild animals, not interfering with nature and all that jazz. However, I can't sit idly by while an animal starves. I'm just too sentimental for that.

As luck would have it, I happened to be carrying half of a leftover pizza with me. As I got out of the car and Liz drove away, I threw some crusts and pizza the fox's way. Seeing that he, after some hesitance, was nibbling away, I watched him from across the street.

Once he had sated his appetite he wandered down the street and then up again, evidently quite curious about me. He checked me out as I stood by my front door, just watching me. Then quite slowly he crept up to my bags that I had left a few feet away. He sniffed around, gave a little tug to the bag with his teeth, then meandered down the street and out of sight.

I was quite thrilled with my foxy encounter. I felt we had a real moment there, each of us feeling inquitisive about the other. I tried really hard to snap a decent photo, but fate was working against me. The batteries on my camera were dead, the lighting was horrible, my flash was being uncooperative, the fox would creep away right as I clicked the shutter, etc., etc. Nevertheless, I'm posting what I got; purely for the sake of documentation.