The Real Life Animal Encounters Discussion

The Blue Fox · Post by **The Blue Fox** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 10:12 am

So just earlier on this very afternoon that I’m posting this, my mum and I went on a nice little walk out down our local nature reserve seen as it was a nice day. Nothing too special, really, just felt like getting a bit of real world into our systems…

…but then, we were starting to head back home…now, to head back home we have to head up a road, uphill, that cuts through a small, kiddies educational farm of sorts…and it’s surrounded by fields for its horses.

Now, my mum was watching some common-as-mud sparrows fly over a farm gate into one of these fields…and then she spotted something in the middle of the feild and called me over.

You know, sometimes I can just swear on my life that the creatures of nature always know when you don’t have a camera on you, and this is definitely one of those times multiplied by some brain-busting sum of numbers.

I’m talking broad daylight, out in the open slap bang in the middle of the feild, some 50 meters or so away, scratching its ear with its hind leg, bold as you like, 8th wild fox I’ve seen in my entire lifetime so far.

I swear on my life I’m not even making this up.

I…I…I just can’t even…

I’m…just…flabbergasted…

It looked to be in pretty good health too…tail as bushy as you like. Glorious orange coat.

And all these other people were just waltzing on by not even paying attention. No idea they were just meters away from one brilliant example of nature at its finest.

What a spot! Wooooo!

deepskycyan · Post by **deepskycyan** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 10:54 am

Woah. I can see why you'd want to make a post about this experience of yours. Must have been a wondrous sight. Majestic creatures, foxes.

You should consider yourself fortunate. I personally have never seen a fox; not even in captivity.

The Blue Fox · Post by **The Blue Fox** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:00 am

Foxes are pretty elusive round where I live as well. Not that I've tried all that hard so far, really...all 8 of my spots have just been complete and utter luck.

My mum and I have been talking about getting some night vision gear and heading down to a local nature reserve of an evening to see if we can spot a fox or two then.

InDaZone1219 · Post by **InDaZone1219** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:04 am

Cool story...
also I hate it when you grab your camera to take pictures, then some mysterious force somehow keeps you from actually getting the pictures (like the camera itself is missing).

But It does make a great story just to know how you encountered a fox of this magnitude though.

The Blue Fox · Post by **The Blue Fox** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:17 am

InDaZone1219 wrote:CI hate it when you grab your camera to take pictures, then some mysterious force somehow keeps you from actually getting the pictures (like the camera itself is missing).

I know, right?!?!? XD

InDaZone1219 · Post by **InDaZone1219** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:38 am

The Blue Fox wrote:
InDaZone1219 wrote:CI hate it when you grab your camera to take pictures, then some mysterious force somehow keeps you from actually getting the pictures (like the camera itself is missing).
I know, right?!?!? XD

I'd have way more YouTube videos than I do now if it wasn't for that mysterious force.

Shadowstar23 · Post by **Shadowstar23** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 12:33 pm

It is obivious. You have seen the real life Karishad.

Radio Blue Heart · Post by **Radio Blue Heart** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 2:00 pm

Shadowstar23 wrote:It is obivious. You have seen the real life Karishad.

He's graduated from local hooligan to international hooligan!

But that how it always is with photography I suppose. Nature photographers will spend months in the field to get only a few choice shots. And, the animals rarely cooperate.

Amazee Dayzee · Post by **Amazee Dayzee** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 2:13 pm

I never see foxes around where I live but my mom did make friends with a squirrel who comes around avoiding my cats to get peanuts. One time when I was going to school, I caught him coming up the stairs to the porch waiting for her.

InDaZone1219 · Post by **InDaZone1219** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 2:32 pm

All I see are dead deer carcasses in my area...

The Blue Fox · Post by **The Blue Fox** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 2:35 pm

Radio Blue Heart wrote:
Shadowstar23 wrote:It is obivious. You have seen the real life Karishad.
He's graduated from local hooligan to international hooligan!

*Looks up Karishad...*

...oh, that random fox guy that pops up in the comic...I see...

Radio Blue Heart · Post by **Radio Blue Heart** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 2:43 pm

I've only seen foxes a few times. I have seen raccoons, coyotes, skunks, possums and deer. I usually see some type of animal on my walk to work in the morning when it is still dark. When I was at the coast I saw alligators.

Sun Sep 21, 2014 3:02 pm

I'm pretty sure that seeing a fox in broad daylight is a sign that it has rabies, so you may want to report it to someone

Jacey · Post by **Jacey** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 3:03 pm

RandomGeekNamedBrent wrote:I'm pretty sure that seeing a fox in broad daylight is a sign that it has rabies, so you may want to report it to someone

even in the wild?

Cesco · Post by **Cesco** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 3:17 pm

Cool experience, thanks to have told us, but pity for the camera missing.

I would love to see a fox in real life.

Sun Sep 21, 2014 3:17 pm

apparently I was wrong, foxes aren't one of the ones where that's a bad sign.

InDaZone1219 · Post by **InDaZone1219** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 3:24 pm

RandomGeekNamedBrent wrote:apparently I was wrong, foxes aren't one of the ones where that's a bad sign.

I'm pretty sure that's expressed in raccoons. I there's more but that's the only one I could think of off the top of my head.

Anthroguy101 · Post by **Anthroguy101** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:19 pm

It's a sign!

Douglas Collier · Post by **Douglas Collier** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:37 pm

When I was in Colorado for three months, I saw a few coyotes at a pretty close range (100 feet or so, maybe less). Once I even chased one on my bike; it was walking down a dirt path on the way home. My friend who was accompanying me said that was the fastest he had ever seen me bike - and it was uphill. On gravel. Sometimes a wolf's... er - corgi's - gotta protect their turf.

Here where I live, I saw a fox on our neighbor down the road's property - of course, it was really dark and pretty far away, so I didn't get a good look at it - positive it was a fox, though. Saw a pretty mangy coyote a couple of times in a field along the road as well.

When I lived in Virginia, we sometimes heard this eerie shrieking noise late at night. We thought it was a mentally disturbed kid screaming, but later on we learned that it was a fox.

Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:45 pm

Douglas Collier wrote:When I lived in Virginia, we sometimes heard this eerie shrieking noise late at night. We thought it was a mentally disturbed kid screaming, but later on we learned that it was a fox.

yep, that's definitely something that'll scare the carp out of you late at night

TheCactipus · Post by **TheCactipus** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 11:50 pm

I'm not sure how many foxes I've seen. I see them all around in the forests around where I live. I did once have one very human-oriented fox put his front paws on my car while at Mt. Rainier, but that was a special and very strange case.

I also volunteer at a wildlife rehabilitation center, and they occasionally receive foxes. Unfortunately, they usually have been hit by cars and don't live for very long...

okay now I'm sad

Amazee Dayzee · Post by **Amazee Dayzee** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 2:56 am

My grandparents in Arizona have seen a lot of foxes.

The Blue Fox · Post by **The Blue Fox** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 12:21 pm

I should prolly tell the stories of my other 7 fox encounters.

My very first was when I was quite young...I was probably about 4 at the youngest and 6 at the oldest...
...If I recall correctly, my mom and I were heading home from the library, and it was evening...we were, like, halfway down the road we live on, and all of a sudden a fox shot across the road...looked like it had someone's chicken dinner in its mouth...and dived into a back alley about 20 - 30 meters in front of us.

Then, one day much more recently, I was walking round the back of our local nature reserve with my mom, coming down some stairs from a side pathway onto a main pathway...and suddenly I saw a fox shoot across the main pathway in front of us from one patch of undergrowth to another. But my mom was looking elsewhere. I was the only one who saw that one.

The there was the time, one evening, I was in this car park of my local radio station that I was sort of visiting at the time...and then I got startled by something jumping out of a bush by the car park exit...it then stood there for a second...and at first I thought it was a cat...but then I saw the tail...and was like "That's not a cat!" and then it sped off like a bullet round the back of the building somewhere.

The last really clear view of one I had was at my dad's allotment...there's a railway line along the back of it...and we all know railway embankments are a fox's best friend, right? So this one time I spotted this rather scruffy-looking fox sitting there...and I actually had my camera on me, but as I tried to get closer for a better shot, it skulked off.

The other 3 sightings were just fleeting glimpses of mere seconds at various locations, including two at my dad's allotment, but I knew they were of foxes.

Of course I'm counting only WILD sightings here...I'm not counting the two captive foxes I all but got to play with at Lower Moss Wood one time.

Because they were too imprinted on humans to go back to the wild.

Therolyn · Post by **Therolyn** » Mon Sep 22, 2014 7:28 pm

Nice. Where I live you could never get any real sort of encounter with one other than seeing one cross the road in front of your car as you were driving somewhere or most commonly as roadkill on the side/on the road or a body hanging up somewhere on a farmers property (I live in Australia where foxes are considered a dangerous pest, so you very rarely get to experience such moments here).

I do believe every now and then I hear their cries in the evening/early in the night where I live but I can't be sure.

I've had some pretty memorable times with some wildlife sightings, but not as much as most people.

Post by **Sleet** » Thu Sep 25, 2014 4:42 pm

I almost never see foxes. It makes me sad.

Especially since everyone is negative about it if we do see one, since we have small dogs.

Thu Sep 25, 2014 11:22 pm

I've never seen one but I've heard them a bunch.

Post by **Hlaoroo** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 12:21 am

Foxes get shot if they get seen over here. They're a real threat to our ecosystem. I've never seen a live one either.

I do love seeing all our Australian native wildlife though and I love trying to capture them on film, difficult though it is.

Amazee Dayzee · Post by **Amazee Dayzee** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 1:12 am

Why are foxes the threat? EVERYTHING in Australia wants to kill you! Even the plant life! That Gympi Gympi plant scares me.

Post by **Hlaoroo** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 1:19 am

Because nature has a balance that must be kept. Throw one thing out and the implications are far reaching and can lead to extinctions and devastation of natural environments. Foxes were introduced by some Englishman who thought it would be more fun to shoot them instead of kangaroos and they ended up breeding and devastating populations of unique animals we have over here. They were recently introduced into Tasmania too and there's a lot of work being done to get rid of them despite the people who are in denial about their existence there.

It's true that a lot of things in Australia can kill you but really the only time they actually WANT to do that is if you're threatening them.

But this is probably getting way off topic.

I didn't get to see any native British wildlife when I visited England. I'm determined that I shall on my next visit whenever that may be. I shall see a fox and an otter and a mole and a badger.

The Blue Fox · Post by **The Blue Fox** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 7:57 am

Hlaoroo wrote:I didn't get to see any native British wildlife when I visited England. I'm determined that I shall on my next visit whenever that may be. I shall see a fox and an otter and a mole and a badger.

Pfft, Good luck with seeing ALL of those in one trip. Especially a mole.

Post by **Hlaoroo** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 8:28 am

Actually, I lie. I saw a lot of water-birds at a lake near an old mill and monastery near Edwinstowe and plenty of pigeons in London. So I saw some native British animals.

Hey, I didn't say how long that one trip would be though, did I, Thom?

I'm sure there are ways to go about seeing them anyway. Even if I don't see them in the wild, you'd probably still have a zoo.

The Blue Fox · Post by **The Blue Fox** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 8:50 am

Pigeons don't count.

Not a zoo for our native animals, no. Though we do have wildlife centers that will be housing imprinted animals. Heck I know of a good one for Foxes and Otters not too far from where I live. Maybe I can take ya.

Post by **Hlaoroo** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 8:54 am

Aw. Well, I still saw lots of waterfowl. I'll find and upload a picture for you.

That would be fun.

There was one I think down near Canterbury somewhere too which looked good...

The Blue Fox · Post by **The Blue Fox** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 9:06 am

Yeah, waterfowl's fine. Especially if you got something rare. I'll let ya know if ya do if you can find that piccy.

Yeah, there's a few dotted about the place...but moles will still be hard to come byh even in wildlife centers.

Post by **Sleet** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 11:49 am

*reminds herself to never go to Australia*

GameCobra · Post by **GameCobra** » Fri Sep 26, 2014 2:28 pm

Sounds very nice. Too bad i could've seen it myself =3

I really gotta grab my DS when i go on trips all the time. I'm known to be a fox magnet (My sister can vouch for that =D). I've seen about 15 around where i'm at in the past ten years i worked at my company. However, they run as soon as we see them. some people are concerned there's too many foxes where i'm at as well.

The only bold fox i've seen so far is the one that jumped infront of macdonalds to steal a thrown away newspaper. everyone was watching him since he paused while doing it and looked back at us.

deepskycyan · Post by **deepskycyan** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 11:23 am

Stealing a newspaper and interacting with humans? You sure it wasn't a human turned fox trying to get with the times?

Seriously though, I wonder why it stole garbage. Did it think there was a burger wrapped in the paper or something?

InDaZone1219 · Post by **InDaZone1219** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 11:29 am

With this type of society, anything can be wrapped inside of paper.

Amazee Dayzee · Post by **Amazee Dayzee** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:31 pm

Maybe it just wanted to keep up with current events.

The Blue Fox · Post by **The Blue Fox** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:57 pm

I've heard of a news hound...but a news fox?