Fox Pups in Trees

Gray fox pup climbing a plum tree   

Every kitchen sink needs a view of nature. My kitchen sink looks out over a birdbath, the orchard, and the skirt of Lupine Hill. In June while doing dishes, I heard a familiar plop outside and reprimanded myself for not harvesting the plums sooner. The fruit trees in the orchard are so old, they only bloom in earnest once or twice a decade. Last spring was one of those lucky years when the fifty-something plum tree cloaked its gnarled branches with bright blossoms and buzzing insects for a few pink days. Before I could climb the slope in summer and set the heavy ladder between its tangle of unpruned branches, the fruits were darkening to purple and dropping.

As I rinsed a mug, I noticed a single branch in the plum tree shaking wildly. Something fuzzy and gray was moving down its length. A sharp snout poked out of the green leaves and pulled down a plum. It was a gray fox pup 8 feet up in the tree. The backside of the tree was shaking with another fox pup and no adult fox was in sight.  What other animal can go from nursing and clumsy puppy battles to climbing trees in less than a month? The fox pups were bigger and more agile than our first views of them stumbling around the garage in May, but I never imagined them jumping up and climbing trees so soon.

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Two Small Grays

Front   

Back   

Fox Pup in the Garage

I know gray foxes live at the Dipper Ranch because they show up on the wildlife cameras and leave me presents on the kitchen stoop. When I return home at night, I slow for the curve in the Dipper driveway where the view opens up to the deep canyon of Peters Creek, and if the moon is up, forested ridges shimmer all the way to Monterey Bay. Sometimes a smudge of motion catches my attention against the glare of the gravel driveway. It's the bushy tail of a gray fox on nightly patrol. Or even a pair of foxes, the smaller one loping behind the first, until they are just at the edge of the headlight illumination where they turn sharp faces to challenge the car to follow their floating tails under the barbwire fence and down a steep hillside.

Fox Tails

Alarm signal?   

With such long tails, gray foxes undoubtably use them to communicate aggression, submission and other messages to each other.

Fox Truckin'

Just another day of fox pups romping in the farmyard.

On the Mound

The gray fox pups spent a lot of time on this mound just outside the den entrance.

Fox Pups in the Barn

A gray fox pup peeks out from under a barn door, an improvised den entrance.   

A family of gray foxes moved into the old barn on the Dipper Ranch in June. For a month, we watched the fox pups tumble, pounce and lounge about the farmyard day and night just steps away from our kitchen door.

The fox family packed down a dirt runway under the barn door - just like the entrance to an earthen underground den. From reading Random Truth's accounts of San Joaquin kit foxes, I knew many family interactions would occur at the den entrance. We set up wildlife cameras in front of the barn and over the summer we accumulated thousands of photos and videos of the fox pups. First a head would peek out from underneath the big red door, then a small body and fuzzy tail. Soon another pup would wriggle out and playtime would begin. Lots of running, biting, clumsy tackles, and tail pulling.

Vote for the 2016 Walnut Label

Windscorpian   

It's walnut harvest time. There's going to be a big crop and lots of neighbors and friends to share the bounty. Everybody gets to vote on the critter that goes on the label for the 2016 Dipper Ranch walnuts. Usually the label features one of the snakes that appeared on the ranch during the year, but there weren't many snakes this year. Why? Maybe because of the gray fox family that moved into the barn. Yes, foxes eat snakes. If you don't believe me, check out this video from the Camera Trap Codger.

I'm stubborn and even without a huge selection of snakes to choose from this year, I am not going to put some cutesy animal on the label. Instead, you get to choose among local animals I saw in 2016 which have a reputation of being creepy or strange, but really aren't. Mostly reptiles, spiders and bugs, but also some strange mammal tricks.

Big Red Is Down

Hello, hello, are you dead yet?

The driveway and the front gate have a good view across the Dipper Ranch, so I always scan the property when I come and go. On May 18th, 2015, I left the Dipper Ranch to run an errand and all seemed right with the Dipper world.

When I returned four hours later and opened the front gate, I noticed the big red cow lying on her side in a far sunny corner of Pasture 2. With her head on the ground in the middle of the day, it didn't look right.

First Mud Puddle

First mud puddle - must have been some party going on after that rain   

Rain. Here are photos of tracks that appeared in one little mud puddle on the Dipper Ranch after rainstorms finally arrived in mid-November. Can you tell what the tracks are from? The mud puddle was on a road that goes past the water tank.

Everyone's saying "Rain" with such joy. We've been getting rainstorms every few days. People have been going out for walks in it. Waking up at night to watch the stormy skies. Turning off the radio and TV to listen to the sound of it on the roof and the leaves.

Vote for the 2014 Walnut Label

Juvenile western yellow-bellied racer pulled from the main springbox on October 22. Will this be the last snake observed on the Dipper Ranch in 2014?  Contestant #1   

Bits of rain but the hillsides are still dry and warm. It doesn't feel like fall except for the early dark evenings. Still, some seasonal patterns carry on despite the ongoing drought. The red-breasted sapsuckers squeak as they peck away in the persimmon tree during the day, and the leaves rustle when the gray foxes leap into the tree to eat persimmons at night. The English walnuts are falling behind the barn. There hasn't been enough rain to knock off their outer green husks, nevertheless, I find brown walnut shells a quarter mile down the road with just one ragged hole in them - ravens. If we don't get more rain soon, us humans will get black fingertips when we peel off the green husks to get to the tasty walnut meat.

Bad Bad Bushnell Brown

Arrggh, that sinking feeling when I open up my Bushnell HD Trophy trail camera and the date says January 1, 2013. It's not January and it isn't even 2013. Rats, the camera reset itself! I know this means the Bushnell has probably missed some shots and quite possibly has a completely blank memory card.

I check the battery level, the memory card, and every one of the 20 steps in the complicated menu. And I check them again. Everything seems to be working fine, at least right now. One of the batteries is sticking out a little. I tap it. Was it loose or not? I don't know but the rangers are waiting for my advice and I've got a dreadful feeling.

(click Read More to continue but be forewarned there are gory photos of a deer carcass coming up and predator photos)

Flying Foxes

With short legs, flexible forearms, and recurved claws, gray foxes readily climb trees.   

What is the "fantastic fossorial fellow according to Roald Dahl" and the final flying visitor to the Dipper Ranch persimmon tree in 2013? None but Fantastic Mr. Fox, or specifically at the Dipper Ranch, the spirited, leaping and tree climbing common gray fox.

Arboreal and Frugivorous

Gray fox scurrying off with prey.  Are those floppy bunny ears hanging down?  

A week ago Saturday, we heard a loud crash in the backyard at 3:00 am.  People and pets raised our heads high enough to peek out the bedroom window. The backyard remained dark and silent so we went back to sleep.

A Fox Dines on the Jepson Manual

A grey fox smiling at a tasty meal or the Flehman response?

While I was away at a workshop in the Sierras, the mice did play. And so did the cats. Somehow, this resulted in a grey fox eating dinner off my Jepson I manual. How did this happen? How did a botanist end up playing with foxes? Learning is a good thing and sometimes it changes your perspective.

In the Provident Shadow of Omnivores

Nighttime silhouette in the wildlife camera at the cattle pen.

I felt restless in late November as I often do around the full moon, but I was also nervous about attending a four-wheel drive class. Meanwhile, the omnivores were leaving sign at new places on the Dipper Ranch, sometimes being rascals and sometimes making fortuitous appearances.

In the middle of the night before the 4WD class, I woke suddenly. Everything was silent. There were no kids or cats jumping on the bed, so I looked out the window to check on Orion's progress. Under the foggy full moon, the backyard was blurred by swaying tree shadows. Then I saw an especially dark shadow slink in a diagonal path. Was that an animal moving or was I just sleepy?