Fox cub and bat

A few weeks ago I suspected that I had seen two fox cubs in the back track (back entrance to houses) after dark. They could only be seen as black shapes as it was after dark, about the size of a small cat but not moving like one.

Last night at about 9.00pm, I looked down the track to see if the adult fox was around, or the bats that I had not seen since the neigbours cut their tree down.

Out of the gloom I noticed a tiny shape, following the edge of the vegetation. It crossed over the track and continued down to where I stood. It was a little fox cub.

Our house is right at the beginning of the track. The cub was sniffing and listening to the sounds from the road. The cub looked at me on  several occasions and then looked back towards the road. All of a sudden it turned round and scampered back up the track and into the gloom.

I kept a watch again this evening. One of the adult foxes on its usual route walked along our flint wall, from back garden to front, jumped down and made its way up the track.

When it reached a third of the way down, level roughly where I suspect it has a den, it turned and look back down the track towards me. While it stood there it was joined by a cub. You can just see the shape of the cub at the front of the adult fox, head pointing to the right.

Not a good picture as it was taken on full zoom at just before 9.00pm.

The adult fox slowly turned and headed off up the track, the cub trotting behind. It appears from this that their may only be one cub now.

I also saw one of the bats for the first time in ages. As it has got increasingly lighter in the evening through the spring, it has been increasingly harder to predict when they are on the wing - same problem last year.