0 It Is a Cold, Foggy Day . . .

January 20, 2015, up behind the house.

. . . so I am posting a picture of a gray fox, because I like them.

Detail: It Is a Cold, Foggy Day . . .

0 A Red Fox with a Missing Tail

While watching birds out the bedroom window yesterday I saw this fox go by. Obviously something has sheared off part of its tail — a pursuing predator?

It walked to each of the sunflower feeders and checked for fallen seeds, then circled around the house and climbed the hill up into the trees.

The same fox.

I thought it seemed a little stiff in the hips, but was I projecting that, still thinking of the loss last month of Shelby, our arthritic old dog?

We watched it from the kitchen, and M. said something about the hard lives of wild animals.

I wonder if we will see it again.

Detail: A Red Fox with a Missing Tail

0 What Does the Fox Take?*

What does the fox take?

See the while ball with part bitten out? I found it a few days ago while scrambling through a brushy, rocky up behind the house, an area that today (after a light snow) is a maze of fox tracks.

And the other balls? Someone carries them two or three hundred yards up from the neighbors' houses, only to decide that they are not edible.

Maybe the fox thinks that they are eggs. Red fox or gray? That I do not know, but I am putting more scout cameras up there.

And the teddy bear? Same story, from the other side of the ridge.

*It just hit me that if I don't use this headline now, it will be spoofing last year's catchphrase, and no one will know what I meant, ring-ding-ding.

Detail: What Does the Fox Take?*

0 The Fox and the Sunflower Seeds

Go ahead, make a move. It's your move . . . you talkin' to me?

Mid-afternoon and there is a ruckus from the dogs, who are penned on the veranda. The gray fox is not too impressed by the dogs' threats.

Yeah, I eat them. You got a problem with that?

Aesop, La Fontaine, and others made a story of "The Fox and the Grapes." So what is the moral lesson of "The Fox and the Sunflower Seeds"? (The seeds fall from a bird feeder.)

Here is your cinematic reference for the first caption, in case you forgot.

And don't forget the movie, which is excellent. But you will need a VHS player.

Detail: The Fox and the Sunflower Seeds