March 18, 2012 - Gray Fox
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On Thursday, we were at our lake home in northern Minnesota. I was really surprised to see this Gray Fox in our yard. They are usually out only at night and this one did arrive late, about 6:30 P.M. It stayed nearly 45 minutes, eating seeds and peanuts from the ground under our bird feeders. I read that Gray Foxes have the most varied diet of any of the wild dogs.
On Friday, the fox made a brief appearance at about 3:30 P.M. and unsuccessfully chased a Red Squirrel. Gray Foxes, while abundant in the southern two-thirds of North America, are not common in our area of Minnesota. I also read that they are the only members of the dog family that regularly climb trees. They grasp the tree with their front legs and boost themselves up with their hind legs.
Mary Ellis
on March 19, 2012What a lovely fox!
Shawn
on March 18, 2012You can do an image search for "gray fox climbing tree" and see it in action. One of the best ones I saw was at http://www.itsnature.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/GrayFox-Climbing_up_tree.jpg
Linda
on March 18, 2012Great photos, Earl! Next time, can you get it to climb a tree so we can see how that works? :-) I had no idea they could climb trees.