Strange animal!

[eve_prime]

After the Friday movie (Meet the Robinsons), I set forth on a short walk in the dark around the block, about half a mile altogether, with the intention of ending at Safeway for some crimini mushrooms. Just as I was reaching the furthest point from my house – about three or four houses west of Donald Street – I noticed a strange animal on the far side of the street, but in the street. It took off running westward, and it was fast! I messaged J, “Um um um I just saw some sort of extraordinary creature and now I'm going to backtrack a bit and see if I can find it again.” But before I could get that far, a car drove past, and it was clear the animal was now gone.

At first I thought it was a turkey, as it was about the right length, but then I was able to see that it had a bushy tail. It was definitely larger than a housecat but probably smaller than a raccoon. It was very thin – although that impression could just have been part of my brain realizing it was clearly not a turkey. And as I said, it was fast! It had gone at least 150 yards/meters in what seemed like only five or six seconds, but surely it was a bit longer than that. It was moving faster than I would expect a car to go on a street of that size, maybe 30-35 mph, and in a straight line, not veering under a car like I would expect from a cat. Its claws made a faint scratching sound against the asphalt, like “scubbity scubbity scubbity scubbity.”

When I got inside the store and checked my phone, I saw that J had guessed it was a fox. And after checking the internet, I think he was probably right. Our local foxes can run very fast, often in very straight and purposeful lines, and their claws would scratch against the street. If so, this would be the second time in my life I’d ever seen a fox.

Comments

[lovelyangel]

Interesting. It never occurred to me that there are urban foxes around here. I don't think I've ever seen a fox in the wild, and the animal probably wouldn't come to mind if I were trying to identify something in the street. I live not far from a small forest park, and I suppose there could be foxes there. We have coyotes, though – and, of course, raccoons.

[eve_prime]

We're within a mile of true forest on three sides - such that there's no other town in each of those directions for a very very long ways. The only other time I've seen a fox it was right in our driveway, the one that connects my house with J's, standing in the light of our third neighbor's lamp-post. Raccoons are common, as are possums. There's a person about a mile or two west of us who posts animal clips from his yard at night, and he gets bears, lynxes, and maybe even cougars too. I don't think I've ever seen or heard of a coyote around here, though.

[kaishin108]

That is so exciting, I would love to see a fox. I have only seen them in zoos and on All Creatures, hee hee.

I just read they are in Boise too and people see them at dawn and dusk usually.

Brother Fox, as Isabelle would say in Alex. McCall Smith's Edinburgh books. :)

[eve_prime]

I would love to learn how to see them more often. I guess I shouldn't stand outside looking for them at dusk, though, because half the year the air would be full of mosquitos.

[kaishin108]

Right! It's not only the foxes that are out at dusk and dawn!

[heleninwales]

I've only seen a live fox once here. It was way off in the distance further down the valley. The best view of a live fox was in London. It was just the other side of the railway track in broad daylight in full view of a crowd of people waiting on the platform. I have, however, seen quite a few dead foxes at the sides of roads. :-(

[eve_prime]

I have the impression from a public television show I saw a few years back that the overall population density of foxes is much higher in Britain than here. That London fox must have been very bold!

[claidheamhmor]

So cool if it's a fox!

[eve_prime]

Yeah! It sure was a strange animal, behaving like that.