Vixens cry

[CotoChris]

Bloody hell . Has anyone heard of a vixen cry before? It's horrific. Must be mating season and can hear one screaming in the woods. It's a cross between a baby crying and someone being tortured. It's really horrible. My dogs are going wild, tempted to set them loose.

last time I heard this was when walking in the woods at night on full moon with thick fog. That really sent shivers down my spine!

[frosty the snowman]

I used to live in an isolated cottage in the middle of Dartmoor and would often get vixens howling at this time of year. I agree it's very spooky but not as bad as when I got an owl caught in my wind chimes.

[Lou]

Originally Posted by frosty the snowman

not as bad as when I got an owl caught in my wind chimes.

Sounds painful...

I have to say, I really quite like the scream of a vixen. It has a real primeval quality to ti that you don't really get from many other natural sources in Britain. You could believe you were away in the wilds of some great continent with that shriek carrying on the night.

Maybe I am just a little odd, but it is sort of grounding.

[mark g]

if you think a vixens call is spooky, the first time i heard a red stag call was in thick fog on one of those damp october days,

unusual to hear vixens calling this late though, they should have had cubs by now

[Fiji Dave]

Originally Posted by frosty the snowman

I used to live in an isolated cottage in the middle of Dartmoor and would often get vixens howling at this time of year. I agree it's very spooky but not as bad as when I got an owl caught in my wind chimes.

As Lou said - sounds painful...
is it a euphamism?.... "ooh, that caught me right in the old wind chimes....!" although how you'd get an owl caught in them I hate to think....

back to the original - I used to live in Richmond (the southern one) and we had a couple of 'urban' foxes who used to delight in spreading the contents of our bins around the road. I didn't mind that so much but I did think on occasion that someone was being slaughtered horribly in the street outside our house, (being in London you could never quite be sure!) only to discover it was the melodious sound of courting foxes.

Once i knew what it was, like Lou I found it strangely comforting - that may not be the right word - but as a countryside-type-of-guy at heart I was never really at home in a big city - much prefer to be out in a more rural setting. The sound of wildlife in an urban setting was one of those moments when I could imagine that I actually lived somewhere a little more rural and not directly under the heathrow flightpath.

[Woz]

Just run over the bugger with your car. When the fox that killed our chickens got run over on the main road we all cheered.

Not howling now, are you, splatter guts?

[Odin]

We've had them howling in the early hours for weeks.
Quite often see them late at night/early morning crappintg on the lawn - bastards!

[tom]

We've got lots of foxes here. One decided to have a kip on the neighbours' doormat last week! It was around for a couple of days, and eventually did a runner when a van from an animal welfare organisation turned up to try and trap it (a process that was quite funny to watch).

[CotoChris]

Originally Posted by Odin

Quite often see them late at night/early morning crappintg on the lawn - bastards!

Apparently doesn't fox crap scare cats away?

I have to agree with Woz - a dead fox is a good fox. A few years ago a pregnant vixen was shot by local villager, a sad sight but a big sigh of relief from those that kept chooks.

[markosis]

There used to be a screaming fox at teh back of my house in Peckham.

Peckham being Peckham, I was never entirely sure if it was a fox or someone being raped.

If I weren't such an abject coward I might have checked.