"Did you see all three of them?" I ask.
"There are four," he replies.
"Four! I have only seen three."
"One is a runt. He has a hard time getting up and down the steps by himself," the Asset says. "She has been bringing them food and teaching them to eat."
"What food?"
"It looked like two birds without feathers."
I open our upstairs bedroom curtains and see a flash of black and white.
"Did you let Domino out?" I yell. "He can't be out there with the babies!"
And as the words fly out my lips, Domino bolts past again, this time in the opposite direction with Mama Fox behind him, her long pointy nose literally touching the end of his long black tail. I see him climb the big dogwood tree and stop up near the top, swaying on the small branches and holding on as if his life depends on it.
Oh no no no no no.... I don't wait to see if Mama Fox follows him, but, since I just read yesterday that gray fox are excellent tree climbers, I am worried. Very worried. I run out the front door into the light rain in my pajamas and socks. Mama Fox, who is stationed at the bottom of the dogwood, decides to let us handle the situation and heads down towards the back woods to watch.
So here we stand, National Asset (appropriately dressed for such an occasion) and me in my PJ's, hollering at Domino to come down from there! while the terrified baby foxes are scrambling madly to find their way back in their den under the front porch.
"We need a ladder," the Asset says.
"Which ladder?" I ask as I try to remember where we keep a ladder while attempting to herd the frantic babies towards the opening under the stairs. They do not want to leave their hiding places behind the porch furniture and just dart around and around the white wicker legs.
National Asset goes and gets the tallest ladder we own, extends it to the high part of the tree, and leans it against those tiny branches Domino has wrapped himself around.
"It won't hold you," I tell him. But of course, he ignores me and it does hold and he manages to wrestle Domino into one of his arms and climb down with the other and get the cat past the poor little traumatized foxes to push him into the house.
"I'm going to get some shoes on," I yell over my shoulder. Inside the mud room, I pull on some shoes and grab my rose pruning gloves which come up to my elbows and get the broom and try to enact a baby fox rescue, making quite a fashion statement, I might add.
One of the babies hasn't yet made it back into the den. He is shivering behind the wicker bench. This must be the runt I think. Even so, he has the sense to stay out of my reach and I have the sense not to get down there with my face by the ground to try grabbing him, rose gloves or no rose gloves. I get the broom and try to gently sweep him towards the opening below the porch, but we only go round and round in circles.
"Just leave him," the Asset says. "Let's go get breakfast and his mom will come for him."
By the time we are ready to leave Mama Fox has not yet returned, at least to our knowledge. But Runt is no where to be found. We assume he found his way home.
Domino is now grounded (meaning he won't be let outdoors) until the little foxes leave the den.
He is not going to like this.
And as for me, I have been learning more about foxes in this short period of time than I thought possible.
Mama Fox has been around for some time, probably several weeks before we discovered that our porch was doubling as her den. I have been taking her picture and talking to her so she would recognize my voice. We have lived life normally, which includes a lot of walking on or near the porch/den and she didn't act any differently.
Two nights ago I spotted her coming up from the woods and circling the property. I knew she was heading to her babies. She was very careful. She came up one side of the property, looking every which way, but didn't enter the porch. Then she went all the way around the other side, very alert. When she finally decided the threat level was acceptable, she slipped under the porch so quietly and quickly that I almost missed it even though I was watching. She was making certain no other predator would find her den.
A little later she and the little ones came outside for playtime. She stationed herself up on the driveway, Mama Fox on playground duty. I quietly took the camera and crept out on the upper deck to take some photos. But somehow I spooked her. I thought she would turn on me, but instead she ran away from the babies and the den and made this terrible cry. She ran further away, stopped and cried again. I thought she was scolding me. Then I realized that her cry was an alarm that sent them scrambling for the shelter of the den. It worked. It had successfully pulled my attention away from her kits until they were safely hidden.Crazy like a fox.
