Foxes

Gloria lives on the South Shore of Lake of Bays. From time to time she sends us photos of life at her end of the lake...

Right now, she is enjoying watching a family of foxes growing up nearby.

We're all for wildlife... we enjoy watching the fox kits tumble, rumble and play as much as the next person. They are beautiful creatures, superbly adapted for their fox-world.

They are also, of course, keen and merciless hunters. You can't blame them... A vixen with mouths this hungry has to work hard to bring home dinner. We do, however, have an issue when the dinner she brings home is chicken take-out from Bondi Village.

We also have a fox family nearby. Last week, a fox came ripping down off the hill, past our neighbour who was mowing the lawn, past Elli who was riding her horse, and snapped up a chicken. It killed two actually, and made off with one while the rest of us chased it away from the others.

Brian found our elder chicken, 'Greenback Bob', looking alarmed, perched on the high deck railing at Wheelhouse cottage. The chickens scattered, and it took almost two hours for them all to come creeping back out of their hiding places.

A guest, seeing chickens on the lawn, asked if these were free-ranging, organic chickens. "Yes." They receive no medications or growth supplements, they forage freely, they are about as natural as a chicken can get and still be carried around under one's arm from time to time...

"The problem," I pointed out, as I put the finishing touches on a fenced-in chicken run, "is that the free-ranging and organic fox is picking them off."

"Oh, my goodness," replied our innocent. "What makes a fox 'organic'?"

Well, really, aren't they all? Realizing what she'd just said, the lady broke into huge laughter. The fox, somewhere not far enough away, is doling out the wings and thighs to her hungry cubs, and commenting on the flavour...

All of which is fine for the fox, but a problem for those of us who are trying to co-habit here... The chickens are grumpily allowing themselves to be herded into their fenced run when we aren't around to keep an eye out for them. The fox, we predict, will be back.