When I first started filming the wildlife in our garden at night it seemed fairly straightforward.
We had at least two hedgehogs because at they both turned up at the same time one night. In fact the one we named Horace appeared to be bullying the smaller hedgehog.
We also knew we had two foxes, one of which we called Ferdinand and the other Francesca. It was easy to tell them apart as Ferdinand had half the hair on his tail missing.
At the same time Francesca appeared to be smaller and easily spooked. She would take a single piece of the food and run off, returning a couple of minutes later to snatch another
Ferdinand, on the other hand was cock of the walk and would even stand on his back legs with his front paws on the stone table as he chomped away at the night’s delightful offerings.
Although we never saw them together we began to believe they might be a couple. Ferdinand would clearly mark the area around the table and the bowl of water – basically by urinating on the area, including in the water bowl.
Although he left these olfactory signs Francesca would still turn up and have a feed – and a drink of water.
This would appear to indicate that Francesca was his mate and so not scared off by the scent markings.
Then one night recently we saw a new, younger fox, arrive with one of our adult foxes, The youngster stayed slightly back from the adult, who we believe was Francesca.
After this we once again only saw one fox at a time and it began to be difficult to differentiate as Ferdinand’s tail appeared to be bushing out.
At one time I began to believe that it was only one fox until Saturday night when we saw two foxes on the video at the same time with one of them top one said and slightly behind its companion.
I am now going to have to go through previous recordings to try and find identifying marks on each of the foxes.
I believe that it is a family of three, Ferdinand and Francesca and their remaining offspring Freddy or Freda.
I’ll let you know how I get on.
Robin's Nest 