Recently, I was privileged to be present when my friend, Bill Devereux, took delivery of five young foxes, courtesy of the RSPCA. They had arrived at the RSPCA rescue centre near Nantwich, Cheshire, at various times during the summer, from various sources, and were now old enough to be released.
Bill's property is secluded, contains fields, woodland and a river, and is connected to many miles of woodland throughout Clwyd. It was therefore judged ideal for the release back to the wild of these young foxes.
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Wilderness Farm, set in the valley
of the River Alyn, not far from Wrexham.
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Bill helping to unload the cage
sections from the trailer.
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The hardest job was digging a shallow
trench for the cage to sit in, so that the foxes would not be able to
immediately dig their way out underneath the cage sides.
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The cage complete, it was time to move the young foxes into it. |
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| As usual in a group, one fox was much more confident than the others, and immediately began to explore his surroundings. | He demonstrated his agility at some length, running up the mesh like a cat, leaping as high as the six foot cage side. |
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| When Sam, the farm dog, came over to see what was going on, the fox regarded him intently and with great suspicion. | Only occasionally did he pay any attention to the humans around his cage. As we left, he was starting to dig here and there, and I thought that they would be long before they released themselves. |
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| Next morning, the cage was empty! | Over the next few days, the bold fox was to be seen in daylight, resting on an old mattress in the barn. When I took this photograph, however, he walked away and disappeared at the back of the barn. |
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| I walked over quietly, and he reappeared through an opening in the back of the barn. One more photograph, and that was it! He went out of the back again, and I only got occasional glimpses of him with at least one other fox, playing behind the barn. | A few days later, I went to photograph the foxes at dusk, but it was like dealing with ordinary wild foxes. When I took this photograph, he disappeared, and it was well after dark before we saw them again. |