Raining Foxes in June

Sailor peeks out of the first fox sette of the day -- a sette Mountain had bolted an adult fox out of about 10 minutes earlier.


It soared past 90 degrees in the shade on Sunday, but Beth and I hit the farms anyway, and with unexpected success.

The day started with a bit of frustration. We found an occupied groundhog sette very quickly and all the dogs were pinging, but despite three holes and a LOT of digging by the dogs, we never located the damn hog, and in the end we gave up and moved down the hedgerow.

Mountain had moved down the row ahead of us, and as we looked on from the other side of the field she bolted a fox out of a corner hedge. The fox was in a full-flight panic and going faster than I had ever seen a fox run.

We sauntered down to the presumed fox sette (moving fast seemed insane in the heat) and yep, there was the fox sette.

Sailor slid in and I took a quick picture (above) just as she was exiting. Beth and I had scoured this fence row in February and early March and it was blank -- this sette must have been dug in late March or April.

We turned down the connecting hedgerow and found several more fox settes -- big holes with kick out and fox scat on top.

At the third hole, there was a terrific stink due to the rotting carcass of a small dead possum -- I tossed it out into the corn field as the smell was enough to gag a mule, and the dogs slid into the holes looking for signs of life.



This den, on the edge of poison ivy, was occupied. Note the fox scat near the bottom center -- aways a good sign.


Sailor opened up in this pipe, and Moutain and Millie noodled around at the entrance and then explored a couple of holes down the hedgerow looking for action of their own.

We waited for Sailor to settle, and she did. It was a shallow den, but we had no idea what was inside and we did not want to open up the den too quickly in case there were fox kits inside. Sailor will ignore true babies, but will scrap with a young adult able to defend itself. Odds on, however this was a groundhog or an adult possum.

Sailor continued to bang away -- there was no telling what was going on underground but I never worry too much about Sailor. She's small but very smart.

I sprawled spread-eagle in the shade waiting for something to bolt while Beth listened to Sailor working. After a bit, it looked like Sailor was going to hold whatever it was where it was, so we decided to punch a hole in the sette and see if we could bust it up a bit.

The sette was only about two feet deep, and we hit the side of the pipe which was very wide and even wider when we scooped it out a bit more. Having made a pretty big door very close to the action, we pulled back from the hole to see what would happen.

About two minutes later, a nice adult vixen shot out of the hole and bounded off into the two-foot high corn. She looked like she had been rolled in the dirt. Sailor came out a few seconds later, with a bit of blood on her muzzle, and very tired. I looked her over, and she seemed to be without injury so the blood was either not hers or was from a self-inflicted tongue bite. I decided her wobbliness was due to heat stroke (I felt it too!) and carried her back to the vehicle.

We decided to hit the other side of the farm, across the road, and after bouncing down the edge of a corn field as far as we could, we staked Sailor in the shade with water and headed out with Millie and Mountain and Emma and Shelby.

The dogs were no more than 50 feet from the truck when they opened up under an enormous multi-flora rose. This bush was a virtual haystack, and we had to crawl on our hands and knees to get through it to the other side. This sette was on a creek bank, about four feet above the water, and it was a very clear groundhog sette.

I took the machete to the rose and after a bit we had enough space to work. We cut into the pipe -- it was not going to be deep -- and punched through in short order. Shelby was working up a storm. Imagine our surprise to see a fox face looking out!

We were pretty pumped -- two fox in June. Yahoo! Beth handed me the snare, but as I was fiddling with it, the fox pushed past the bar I had put in the pipe and it bolted out an exit -- a small adolescent fox, but a very nice piece of work from Shelby who had been pressing it hard and mixing it up a bit too.

We rested a bit (did I mention it was really hot?), and then I packed up the tools while Beth descended the bank and crossed the creek. I threw her the machete so she could hack her way through the undergrowth on the other side -- it was a jungle over there. Meanwhile, it sounded like the other dogs had already gotten into something. It was turning into a busy day!

I went down the hedgerow and crossed the creek at another location, but here too it was like a jungle. After hacking my way back through the brush, I manage to find Beth at a hole with Millie and Mountain hard on another fox. This too was a young fox, and the dogs were pulling it straight out of the den. I busted Mountain off it (she had been following me up to now), while Beth choked off Millie and I grabbed the fox very firmly around the throat so it could do no harm.

After the dogs were off the fox, I layed it in the shade near some thick weeds a good 20 feet away from the dogs (and out of sight of them). The fox began to beathe again and started to recover. It would take a while to catch its wind, but it did not appear to be injured in any way -- the bottom jaw was fine, and there were no cuts or punctures that I could see.

While I was making sure this third fox was all right for release, Millie went to ground in another sette. This one was under an enormous dome of multiflora about 20 feet away. Beth and I tucked into the shade underneath it in order to escape the heat.

We both listened as Millie worked this fox up, and I laid down flat on the ground to cool off. I could have gone to sleep in an instant.

After about twenty or thirty minutes of dead silence from us, Millie came out to see if we were still there and we grabbed her. Less than a minute later, the fourth fox of the day bolted off -- another young adolescent.

At this time of year young fox are starting to head out on their own, but they will lie up very near each other and the adults are often close by as well.

These 'teenage" fox can make it on their own, but they like the companionship and security of having their littermates nearby. A very hot day and a large number of groundhog dens in a small area resulted in our finding three young fox to ground and very close by each other.

With four fox under our belts -- and five bolts -- we decided to call it a day. We headed back to the truck, taking a small tour through a swampy bit of land covered in thick skunk cabbage.

Despite the heat -- and because of it -- it was a spectacular day in the field. To top it all off, I was back home in time to have a backyard barbecue with friends.

"No animals were harmed in the making of this movie."