An urban surprise

17 Comments

1. PG says:

   13 September 2008 at 4:42 PM

   You should come to our parish house near Glasgow in Scotland. Not only do we have whole families of foxes in the garden in broad daylight we now have deer in the primary school playground.
2. Jacques says:

   13 September 2008 at 4:48 PM

   Foxes behaviours changed a lot in half a century in adapting themselves to the consumering society: I remember when I was child by the fifties that a fox attempted and succeeded many times in breaking into my father’s hen house to steal our chickens. Seeing a fox in this time wasn’t so usual while it has become in the time being.
   Currently foxes, despising alive chickens, have cleverly ceased to roam around hen houses since they may feed themselves more easily and without risk in the rich trash cans that we care every day to keep filled with our succulent and substantial meal’s remainders.
   Food being now available in plenty and the rabies eradicated, the foxes have proliferated: A lot of them have emigrated from the countryside to the town’s suburbs where some individuals pluck up the courage to venture by night in the downtown streets.
   Dear Father Zuhldorf, certainly you may quote a number of bird species that have changed for these same reasons
3. wsxyz says:

   13 September 2008 at 6:30 PM

   About six years ago, at dusk, at I was heading to a class at the Technical University of Berlin when I came face-to-face with a fox after turning a corner into a small courtyard just outside my destination building. I stopped suddenly and the fox and I sized each other up from a distance of about six feet. Then the fox just trotted away.

   When I got to my classroom I reported seeing the fox but no one believed me.
4. PMcGrath says:

   13 September 2008 at 7:23 PM

   Two words: Urban foxhunting! Tally-ho!
5. JohnE says:

   13 September 2008 at 7:45 PM

   Are you sure that’s not the Urban Chupacabra?
6. Joshua says:

   13 September 2008 at 9:09 PM

   You’ll also find urban foxes in – Melbourne, Australia. (Foxes were introduced to Australia by the early settlers to make the place seem more like England, and to afford recreational hunting opportunities.)
7. Maureen says:

   13 September 2008 at 10:00 PM

   There’s a fox on campus at Loyola in Chicago.
8. Leicestershire Na Na Na.....Sarah says:

   13 September 2008 at 10:46 PM

   Leicester is known for it’s foxes, everywhere….city centre the other day a poor baby fox got ran over, so sad…still squished at the roundabout, :( (also the night-life is WELL good, you KNOW you want to go clubbing in Leicester Father :P, it’s not just old people that read your blog ya know)
9. Jayna says:

   13 September 2008 at 11:39 PM

   I saw one as I was walking home from the pub on my birthday last year (I was living in Bishop’s Stortford for a few months). Freaked me out, I live in Atlanta and we don’t have any how-you-say “animals”. Well, really, we don’t have much living anything; plants, animals…people, for that matter. (I swear, they need to hire me at the visitors bureau.)
10. Peter says:

    14 September 2008 at 1:52 AM

    Joshua beat me too it. Yes the imported red fox can be found in many urban and suburban parts of Australia.

    A most resourceful and adaptable carnivore that can learn to forage cheek and jowl with us people but he is rarely seen. I’ve seen quite a few over the years in similar circumstances to Fr Z – late at night or early in the morning.
11. Fr. Marie-Paul says:

    14 September 2008 at 7:17 AM

    Besides the fox, it looks like a miracle white orb in the top left of the picture, above the street light in that same quadrant of the photo. I had gotten those when I took photos at EWTN last year.
12. wsxyz says:

    14 September 2008 at 12:32 PM

    I live in Atlanta and we don’t have any how-you-say “animals”

    Say what?

    Atlanta is so suburban it is full of animals. I am often out in the night and I have seen not only foxes, but also wild turkeys, coyotes and deer recently. That is in addition to the ubiquitous possums, raccoons, rabbits, rabbits, and rabbits.
13. Peggy says:

    14 September 2008 at 2:17 PM

    I thought maybe you saw the ghosts of the Beatles crossing the street…
14. Richard T says:

    14 September 2008 at 2:24 PM

    They’re supposed to be pretty common in southern England; see here:
    http://www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/urbanwt/WIS_pages/Foxes.htm

    But you were lucky to see one, Father, and luckier still to get a photo. They are fascinating to watch.

    PMcGrath – see the above link, apparently urban fox-hunting was tried!
15. Margaret Trill says:

    14 September 2008 at 3:11 PM

    Next time you are in our parish at Blackfen Father just look around the church car park. There are often foxes there, even in broad daylight! I live about a mile from the church and we often see foxes in the streets around here.
16. Tecumseh says:

    14 September 2008 at 3:57 PM

    Used to see several foxes 1/2 mile south of London Bridge just off Bourgh High street back in ’99 when I was working down in the smoke.
17. Jayna says:

    14 September 2008 at 6:56 PM

    wsxyz: Not the in the city at any rate. Unless you’re talking rats and pigeons.

Comments are closed.