Mother's instinct

Over the last (almost) 2 years, Sage and I (now of course accompanied by Andi), have taken many walks in the field by our house. Even though the field is in between neighborhoods, we often get treated to some beautiful wild life encounters: we've heard coyotes, smelled skunks (Ok, maybe not so beautiful to the nose), of course seen bunches of antelope, even the occasional deer and rabbits, and spotted eagles and hawks. Every now and then, we've also seen a pair of foxes. Though of course I am not certain they are in fact a male and female pair (I am not a biologist, and I don't know about long-term relationships in the fox world), they do look distinct, suggesting so.

Today another encounter also suggested so. As Sage and Andi and I came over this little hill in the field, Sage's tail started wiggling even faster, and at that point I spotted a Mom fox with two baby foxes! What a treat! Of course Mom fox had already spotted us, and immediately directed her babies back to their fox hole. As soon as they were in, mom moved to a spot about 15 yards away from the hole, and started making a hole bunch of noise towards us - very loud, as if to distract attention away from the place her babies were in. It was sort of a distressed hissing, low-pitched miauwing noise - Mom was definately on the defense: don't you dare to come closer! We continued to watch for a little while, hiding behind a bush (luckily Sage must have also figured this fox did not want to play, and stayed away from her). Though I would have loved to stay there longer to observe, I sympathized with this fox Mom and figured she had already had enough adrenaline for one day, and would much rather also have a quiet afternoon with her babies, so we left.

But what a treat! I beautiful prairie fox Mom protecting her babies :)