Foxes In The Countryside

Written by Abby Sabel Posted on 08 May. 2022

animals countryside countryside manners foxes learning nature teaching the countryside code walking wildlife

My Fox Experiences.

Each night, I go for a nightly walk around my country lanes. Some may say "that's mad!" however, this is when the magic happens.

Over the last few weeks I have been bumping into some furry creatures. Through my [extremely] bright torch light picking up on eyes, it seems to look like cats. It is only once this creature has moved that it has revealed its real identity. These foxes in the countryside seem very tame - this is not good but I will explain why later on. They seem to sit close and watch us pass by each night as we walk cautiously past.

The night of the 2nd April I went for my nightly walk with mom to wind down - as usual. As we were chatting, we froze again as we come across our usual foxy friend. In a split second another smaller fox comes jumping & diving really close to us and dives into a bush. Not knowing how foxes react to humans, we froze, excited and scared! The same fox then dives straight at the other fox and then runs off further down the lane. We carry on walking making noises trying to get the original fox to move into the side which it eventually does! As we go past the one fox comes out of the bush behind and the other comes up from a cottage driveway in front. It was a bazaar situation to be sandwiched between 2 foxes!

After having a chat & cuddle with Wilson the beautiful Golden Retriever, we turned around to come back home. As we walked there was this eery sound that sounded like a baby crying and screaming. As we got closer to the sound, we thought the foxes had caught some sort of bird or animal and was attacking it.We recorded it to do some research when we got home. It's only very faint on this film but you can still hear it...

As you can imagine the walk was cut short! When we got back, we did a very quick Google, we discovered that it was foxes fighting. All in all, a very surreal experience.

I wanted to find out more about foxes in the countryside so I did some research that I can share.

Foxes in the countryside

So my first worry was "Do foxes attack humans?". These are wild animals and therefore can attack anyone and anything however, it is rare for a fox to attack a human. This is not an invitation to invite Mr Fox around for tea though. Apparently foxes with rabies will attack humans. How do we know if a fox has rabies? Sometimes we simply aren't able to see so play it safe, don't get close to these cute, fluffy creatures.

Another reason to avoid these dog like animals is because if they trust us humans, it could cause a lot of problems, especially for rural folk. Pets, poultry and livestock are all at risk if we make friends with Mr Fox. For example, with poultry a fox will happily break into a pen, kill 20 odd chickens to just eat one - poor chickens! With livestock, if you have a field full of pregnant sheep a sly old fox could creep into the field and scare them , causing devastating stillborns & miscarriages from stressed sheep. And our beloved pets, foxes not only look like dogs but act like them too, so imagine if you had a small dog or cat that confronted a slick fox?

I don't mean to put a dampener on these creatures as, to look at them, they are stunning. However, humans wouldn't be humans without loving animals. In order to put our pets and animals first we must "shoo!" away any fox that approaches us. We should not be feeding them in our gardens, let them wander in naturally and admire them from afar. If we encourage pet-like behaviour to these wild animals, there will be a lot of devastation.

So let's enjoy nature how it is intended to be. Let them roam the countryside freely without us getting involved. I mean imagine if one day you go for a walk, see a fox and the first thought was "oh no, not ANOTHER fox." So let's appreciate them for what they are, elusive, cute, fluffy, ginger wild animals.