Today’s post is on the Red Fox. Hopefully between description and photos when you are done reading my blog you will have a better understanding of the differences between the Red Fox and Gray Fox which I blogged on yesterday. The two foxes are distant cousins to each other as we discussed already. Both are common to the US with the Gray Fox being the dominant fox West of the Mississippi and the Red Fox the dominant fox East of the Mississippi.

The Red Fox is only slightly larger than the Gray Fox. Its overall color is an orange brown and the tip of its tail is white. Different to other foxes it has black legs called stockings.

It is also different than the Gray Fox because of where it lives. The Red Fox has only a small presence in the actual territory of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Fearful of another canine, the Coyote, it chooses to rather live in outlying areas buffering the heavily wooded national park. It can be found in towns and even cities which have greenbelt areas and county parks. It also enjoys living around golf courses and country clubs. Those locations are surrounded by wooded areas in which they hunt and the grassy fairways are like their highways to get from one hunting ground to another.

Because they do live in close proximity to humans, Red Foxes may be seen when they are moving from one area to another. They are seen even more in late winter and early Spring when males are searching for females. Females and kits are seen frequently in late spring. One of the reasons for this is that female Red Fox have to hunt and provide for their kits. They also have a tendency to move their kits from one den site to another. Sometimes the first spot is very small or very close to human activity. As the kits grow more space and privacy may be required, so she moves them during the night time hours. If this occurs she will move one kit at a time until the whole family is secure in the new location. Red Fox usually have 1-7 kits sometimes called cubs. It is common for a female to have a litter of 4 or 5.

(References: Wikipedia contributors. (2020, May 1). Gray fox. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:33, May 6, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php…)

Always be ready for “The Shot” is what I preach and teach to my students. I try to do as much nature and wildlife photography as possible using a tripod. However, when driving backwoods roads my handheld set-up is always at the ready. I try to estimate the closest settings for seeing wildlife along side the road. I angle the camera where I can easily find the grip with my right hand. I roll all the windows down when possible. I always keep track of the sun and the direction I am traveling for the quickest calculation of available light.

On this day I was driving down the road and saw a Red Fox on the right side of the road moving slowly away from me. I knew if I tried to stop too quickly it would put the fox on high alert. I also knew that if I passed the fox and shot back behind the truck I would gain even better lighting. Knowing the length of my lens paired with a crop sensor camera would give me the best results from about 30-50 yards, I stopped when at about the 50 yards mark. While slowing down, I had already gripped the camera and in an instant was slowly out the door closing it quietly behind me. The fox slowed and came to a stop about 40 yards from me. I carefully squeezed off a few shots and the fox looked across the road from where it was standing. This allowed me a few more shots with different head angles. It turned and started moving slightly away from me and across the road.

I went into action walking fast, to almost a jog, careful not to make any noise. I was traveling about twice the speed of the fox and making up ground. As I looked ahead of the fox, I realized it was about 20 yards from a river running along side the road. I made up some more ground and when the fox was about 10 feet from the bank leading down to the river, I calculated it would turn to see if I had been following it. I hit my knee to help steady myself with my left elbow on my raised right knee. This is always a good idea when trying to shoot with your heart racing after a good little jog. I had just enough time to lock on focus before the fox spun around to look back. I took this shot before it turned its head and looked straight ahead. I fired off another shot and the fox was gone. It scampered down the bank and maneuvered through some trees, never to be seen again.