I've had an extraordinary day of foxwatching - I've seen eight foxes so far Six of them were outside of my garden...

I've got two videos online from all this. The

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shows some interesting fox behaviour - a male fox gnawing at a bush! They do this to intimidate their rivals.

The

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shows four foxes playing over the meadows. Well, most of the games were from two of them, but there were four foxes present. They were playing tag (possibly over a toy / bit of food; couldn't see that far) and wrestling with each other. You can also see a brief clip of one fox grooming or nuzzling the other's face.

Wow, SittingFox, you are really blessed to be able to see these things first hand.

SittingFox wrote:

The Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! shows some interesting fox behaviour - a male fox gnawing at a bush! They do this to intimidate their rivals.

Now that's a new one for me, I never knew that before...it doesnt make much sense to me unless perhaps it's something along the lines of 'look at my sharp teeth, you don't want to mess with these.." Very curious..

eh, i didint know that either, i thought they did that cuz there was some sort of irritation in their mouth or something,i usually see it from week to week, eheh who knew? not me

Thanks both! It was a great afternoon.

This hedge-smashing behaviour is quite startling really, but it's not that well known. The old alpha male of the garden group used to indulge in it to frighten a lower-ranking male. Quite what it means to a fox, I don't think anyone knows! Presumably it's some way of demonstrating strength, or at least aggression!

They do of course nibble at branches for other reasons too. This one was just playing:



The territorial display tends to be much more violent, and often involves the fox rolling around.