FLORIDA WILDLIFE

We had a mother fox with three baby foxes on our porch this morning. Here's the mama, when she noticed me taking her picture through the window:

And here are the babies, at the door:

Meanwhile this guy was on the screen, having breakfast:

Comments

[Jemmy]

Oh, how gorgeous!

[CoastRaven]

Too kool! Thanx Dave - that brought a smile!

[crossgirl]

better let them in before the gator gets 'em!

[Kittypaws]

It appears to me as if the pups are looking for breakfast. They have the same look on their little faces my dog does if I'm not quick enough to fill her food bowl.

[wolfie]

Awwwwww!
Set some kibble out so they stick around.

[CoastRaven]

wolfie PLEASE! Everyone knows geckos don't eat kibble!

[Olo Baggins of Bywater]

Could you imagine letting them in? Would momma follow and give you a a piece of her mind, or maybe take a piece of your behind? LOL, what a great thing to see, and what a beautiful fox.

[Theresa]

They are very cute but they are wild and could carry diseases.

[Dave]

Theresa -- This is why they are outside, and we are inside.

[PirateBoy]

I could see the RBR's doing "Foxy" or maybe even "Fox on the Run", but "We're Off to See the Lizard" just doesn't seem to fit their style.

[fivver]

Theresa that also goes for the NBA. Except for the cute part of course.

[wolfie]

Of course not CR. Sheesh *hairflip*
The foxes eat the kibble and the gecko eats the foxes. They grow geckos ginormous in Daves backyard.

[judi]

yeah, i acquired a couple of cats, a duck, and quite a few birds that way (putting out food)... they all like the cat food, which i put out for a stray that seemed pregnant... turns out she was just fat. but now we have two crows who wait for her to get done eating in the morning and finish the food, and a duck who waits for the droppings from the bird feeder -- the crows won't eat the birdseed -- and miscellaneous resident birds (pigeons, bluejays, mourning doves) who will. they all poop in my carport.

[puppytoes]

sweet/charming pictures, nature boy dave, thanks for sharing...

[fivver]

Several years ago I had a problem with raccoons raiding my gargage cans. As a bribe I started leaving kibble out for them. Every evening dad, mom and the kids would come by for dinner on my deck. If I was late putting the food out they would scratch at the door to remind me.

[puppytoes]

judi: i knew you were an animal lover, but wowza, missy, i had no idea how much your menagerie had grown! (must be a lot of fun trying to keep that carport clean!)

[CoastRaven]

*snork* @ judi and her poop collage.

[Drew]

"Poop in your carport" WBAGNF something...

[Lou Bricant]

THAT, was really cool. Thanks, Dave!

[puppytoes]

judi: have you read Enslaved By Ducks? i'm thinkin' this is gonna be you, if you're not careful! : D

[Juggler of Geese]

My wife just said she wants one.

[Punkin Poo]

Awwww! Widdle biddy babies!!! Does the widdle cutesy pootsey foxy woxy want some yum yums???

*must turn off biological clock*

[puppytoes]

J of G: one what?

[Lisa Bisa Fo Fisa]

DAVE--They're so beautiful! I love it!

My sister used to live in a house with a green space behind it. Every night around dinner time, a family of raccoons would come up to the sliding-glass door and peer in. My sister would be sitting on her couch, watching TV with her back to the door (and the raccoons). The overall appearance was that my sister and the raccoons were all watching TV together.

It was our very own little "Far Side" moment.

[Charlotte]

We just recently moved out to the country and have a fox that lives down our gravel road. Every morning and evening when we would drive down the road, it would run in front of our car. We thought that was really cute, made sure we didn't hit him. The neighbors on the other hand have geese and were waiting in the yard with a shot gun.
I guess we are still city folk.

[O. the U(manity)]

Wowser, Dave ... those are actually some fairly decent pix ... whut happened to the crapcam™ ??? Did you trade it off for a better one?

(HOWever, if you tell me it wuz with your camera phone ... um ... I'm gonna start worryin' more about the advances of technology ... merely sayin' ...)

[Schadeboy]

Judi...are you saying that the duck eats bird droppings? That's just plain gross.

[Dave]

O. the U. -- Those were taken with my highly fangled Canon EOS, which my son taught me how to use. ("OK, don't touch this. Or this. Or this, this, this or this. Or..." etc.)

[Olo Baggins of Bywater]

Theresa...that description also fits my wife's preschool students. She's always coming home with a new bug of some type from those cute--yet wild--monsters kids.

[PirateBoy]

Now that Dave is Canon-Fodder (*groan*), will we finally see a new high-res image of Judi and Walter?

[Juggler of Geese]

A baby Fox. I told her that we would need to move to the Miami area. I also told het that they have Gator's as well as Gator fans down there. After watching Big Trouble again on monday. I don't think she wants to move there.

[Dr. Doug]

Nice pictures. That couldn't have been the "crap-cam" taking them, could it?

[Betsy]

Judi...My first reading of your post yielded "carpet" instead of "carport". I'm easily as relieved as the birds...

[Bill]

Now are the foxes!!!

[TrillianAstra]

How sweet!! What a nice way to start the day!
We live in CT, where the foxes hide from us.
My dad is in a "retirement park" (read: geezer village) near Tampa and they have a gator in the pond in their common area. She eats all of the beautiful native birds who come to drink and swim.
I lived in Daytona Beach for a year and all I ever saw of wildlife in the yard were giant insects and mutitudes of lizards. Of course, they were also not averse to coming inside, when my cat would promptly freak out and try to catch the lizards. Some mornings I knew he had succeeded when I woke up and stepped in a nice slimy pile of lizard parts mixed with regurgitated kitty chow.
I'd take a fox over this experience any time.

[mikey]

The following link is interesting since we are discussing fox babies and what they are called.

FYI

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/animals/Animalbabies.shtml

[Kat]

Gee, all I have is rats. Rats that royal piss the dog off. And the occasional stray cats that eat the rats. I also have a cat bird in the yard that starts singing - no lie - at 2:30 every freakin' morning. I wish the stray cats or the rats would eat the b@stard.
Wild life in the great city of Baltimore is sooo different than FLA.

[Kat]

That should say royally - new computer & keyborad - my world is not right today.

[Guin]

Cool...I've never seen a gray fox. Up here in New England we have red ones, also beautiful animals, but one tried to eat my cat last year.

[Lyss]

They are so adorable! Have you named them yet?

:-7

[Spokane Steve]

It's all fun until the skunks show up.

[pogo]

"They are very cute but they are wild and could carry diseases."

A vixen with kits is unlikely to carry rabies or anythng bad. This time of year you'll see animals out hunting in daylight that are normally nocturnal. It takes a lot to feed the young. Helping them out is a good thing.

In other seasons beware lone animals that seem to be "out of character".

Even though they are probably healthy, don't get between Mom and the kits, and keep your dogs away.

[Dave]

pogo -- Thanks. We did wonder what they were doing out in the daytime.

[Annie Where-but-here]

If Sophie is missing flowers, maybe the kits are taking them. The baby squirrels in our backyard mess with everything- plants, furniture, garden hose, etc. They'll even knock on our glass patio door just to drive the dogs 'nuts.'

I would put some kibble out, just during the day, and water. Aren't you having a drought? That may also be why they're there. The mamma looks like she trusts you.

[pogo]

Your welcome, Dave. Anything for the critturs.

[MOTW]

So, Dave, the flora and fauna (and Sophie's schoolwork) get the El Primo treatment with an actual Canon Camera, but bloglits get CrapCam® .

*snif* I feel so ... so ... cheap.

[Annie Where-but-here]

MOTW - you ARE cheap...but in the best possible way..... {MOTW}

[MOTW]

"Clearance is my midle name."

[Eleanor]

A while back a momma skunk used to come on my patio every night with her 5 babies trailing behind her to eat the cat food.
When they walked past the sliding glass door, I'd throw the TV Guide against it, but not only didn't it scare them off, but momma didn't squirt either.

They were pretty cute - as long as I was inside. :)

[Josh]

When I was at FIU's South campus (SW 8th St and 108 Ave.), we used to see them around the campus sometimes, especially around nightfall. I guess they've migrated further from the Everglades since the 2 years I've graduated. They really are beautiful animals. I just saw an article about how animals are reclaiming some urban areas, and it mentioned red foxes living in populated areas of Miami.

Thanks for sharing, Dave.

[Josh]

My god, it's been 2 years since I graduated. It just struck me. What a geezer I am (I'm 24).

[Lisa Bisa Fo Fisa]

Eleanor, I had a friend who had a pet skunk. It was so cute. Of course it had been deskunkified. It seemed none the worse for wear.

PS-On the news this week, there have been two stories so far about black bears near homes and schools.

[Lisa Bisa Fo Fisa]

PSS-belated *snork* @ "highly fangled"

[O. the U(manity)]

Dave -

Good werk to Rob for teachin' you the proper methods of high technology ... the EOS is a great item, and it's only medium-grade difficult to mess up photos with them ... personally, I prefer a Nikon, but they're all good machines ...

Not as Rob did, I failed to "instruct" MB (RH?) when she got her first digital camera, before our trip to Hawaii ...

After we'd both taken several hundred pix, we were @ Akaka Falls, and she's takin' pix of the jungle, waterfall, bamboo groves, et cetera ... then I heard her say, "Oh, this has a zoom ...!" ... ... ...

ISIANMTU/SHMBSJ

Boy, talk about feelin' stoopid ... (moi ownself, I mean ...)

[pogo]

UTO - I don't know which I prefer, but I already had Nikon lenses so I got the D50. Great camera!

[Annie Where-but-here]

Dave - now that 24 is over, you need to refinish your deck. ;)

[PirateBoy]

The two foxes should be named (naturally) Vivica and Jamie. Their first male cannot be named anything except Red or Vicente.

[Dave]

Annie -- No way. It has fox poop on it.

[Jimmy]

I'm so sorry for you. This is almost as bad as when that group of orphans came up to my home, asking to see their 'real dad'. Man, that was a close one!

[O. the U(manity)]

pogo -

Yeah, I got the D50 a few months ago, after certain "signals" from MB (RH?) indicated that I could finagle the deal without a divorce ... hadda give her my Z3 tho ... the D50 is great ... plenty of whut I need to satisfy my own photographic demands ... now all I need is time to take pix ...

[Kristina]

Those are sooo cute!!!

[Angie]

Seriously, a mother fox is known as a vixen?

I don't know why, but that's really cool. To me, anyway.

I clearly need to get out more.

[MoFaux]

Those are some cool pics.I saw a coyote from my deck one day-It just gave me that coyote look when I whistled at it.I also got that same look from a raccoon. Is it me, or what?

[obi wan]

MoFaux, last year (as if you wanted to know...), my sister and I were flying out of Denver to Louisiana over Christmas because my grandparents were celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary the day after. As the plane started picking up speed, I was looking out the window at a ridge along the runway, and pointed out to my sister, "That looks all the world to ME like a coyote, what with the ears and all..." Being a research librarian, and having lived in Arizona like myself, she agreed that it was not a dog, or a wolf, or an aquatic mammal, but a coyote! I've seen them (and HEARD them) in the wild and in zoos, but as we are lifting into the air, with this coyote in the "wild" of the Denver International Airport, truly an amazing sight!

[O. the U(manity)]

obi' ...

Yeah, the coyote's adaptability is perty amazin' ... I saw one a dozen or so years ago, as it wuz trottin' across Broadway in Fargo, in broad daylight ... and that's about the most un-rural site you can find, in Nodak ...

[Eleanor]

LisaBFF - here in su.so.ca. we are taught that skunks have rabies - all of them.

[azred]

LTTG as usual..... obi wan - (if you read this) - are you the actual 3rd dave fan currently in arizona?

[pogo]

Angie - you're probably long gone, but female foxes are vixens, not just moms. (Males however are just "dogs") The reference to some human females as "vixens" has something to do with the disagreeable nature of the female fox in heat, and is not exactly flatering.

[Lisa Bisa Fo Fisa]

El-That's probably a safe assumption.

[D. Esker]

Very true, pogo. Strangely enough, exactly the same expresion is used in expression is used in exactly the same way in Japan. "Kitsune" means both 'fox' and uh, 'conniving beauty of loose morals.' Must be something to it, I guess.

[Jeni]

To my surprise, I just saw two foxes here in Delray Beach---I had no idea foxes were here!

[Jeni]

To my surprise, I just saw two foxes here in Delray Beach---I had no idea foxes were here!

[devinrocks60]

where do you live

[Kyra]

Don't kill foxes I LOVE FOXES!

[Kyra]

PLEASE DON'T KILL FOXES I LOVE FOXES PLEASE COME IN HOUSE FOR SELL FOXES PLEASE PERSON!!1