Country: Nature Notes

FEW ANIMALS announce their mating rituals more loudly than foxes, which are once again starting their nocturnal courtship. Even in the dark it is easy to distinguish the sexes, as they give out entirely different calls.

Dog foxes patrol their territories uttering little volleys of dry, staccato barks - roff, roff, roff - at intervals of several minutes, and leaving marker-deposits of urine as they go. On a still night you can plot the progress of a dog fox along the side of a valley by the sound alone.

The vixen's cry is an unearthly scream, usually uttered when she is feuding with a competing female: the two stand on their hind legs and spar, letting off fearful imprecations. They, too, are marking their trails with frequent urination, and the allure of a female in season is powerfully magnetic. On one occasion I saw seven foxes advancing in line-ahead formation, six of them dogs after a single vixen.

After a gestation period of about 52 days, cubs will be born in underground dens, probably four or five in a litter. For their first fortnight they are blind, but thereafter they start to emerge and play round the mouth of the earth. If the mother feels that danger is threatening, she may move them to another den, carrying them one at a time by the scruff of the neck.

Duff Hart-Davis