Had an early morning visitor

[oldandslow]

About halfway between still dark and sunup I went into the kitchen, turned on the coffeepot, and then looked out the window as I do every morning. There was a grey fox just outside on the patio looking back at me. It stood there and looked at me for quite sometime and then moseyed on out of the yard, across the driveway, thru the rock garden, and then out into the pasture where it disappeared in the tall grass in no hurry at all. From it's size and coloring I am pretty sure it's a female and I imagine there are some kits down around the barns. They are common here although it's been sometime since I've seen one here at the house. I hope it catches that gopher I missed getting a shot at a couple of days ago. I don't really hate any animal as I realise they are just doing what nature designed them to do. Despite that I have huge dislike for gophers and don't hold roadrunners in a much better light. The fox is welcome to any of either she can catch as far as I'm concerned.

[Dee]

Don't have any gophers in my yard. Roadrunners kill rattlers, so I like roadrunners. Grey foxes are a suckered for a call, and you can call'em up over and over.
I used to feed a little vixen on a golf course every night years and years ago.  She liked tuna sandwiches, and when the streets quieted down I'd slip over the golf course and call her up.
Ever see one climb a tree?

[oldandslow]

Roadrunners also eat ever bird egg they can find and the bird if they can catch it. Lizards, snakes, any animal they can catch is prey. They play hell with the quail population. I don't kill them them but annoy them enough that they go somewhere else to live. That is usually done by means of throwing rocks at them every time I see one. I have a very abundant supply of rocks. It's the state bird of NM. With all the birds that live here I don't know why this drab little cannibal was chosen.

Our tree supply is very limited, all put in by man, and the mesquite bushes are too small for them to climb in but I know they do climb trees and easily. I took my grand daughter and her three girls to the Spring Creek Park and Zoo at Roswell last summer and they were surprised to find two grey fox lying up in a tree in their enclosure watching their watchers.

[Dee]

Didn't know that about roadrunners.

[phalanx]

I have grey foxes here, they don't cause any trouble. I keep water and cheap dry cat food out for them. They also kill rats which will get under truck hood and chew on wires. Rubber and anything else they find.

[BUGEYE]

When we had a winter home in Florida (Land_owners neighborhood) there was about 10 acres of woods behind us and every evening before dark we'd see two gray fox.
They would come to the fence and look at us for about 30 seconds before heading out for the night.

[oldandslow]

I have a 40' storage container out in the pasture and a few years a momma gray fox raised four kits and denned under it. After they got almost grown I closed the hole they were using where it couldn't be used for a den anymore. I don't mind them being around at all and they don't appear to bother the birds. There were quail waiting at the feeder for their free breakfast while the fox was here this morning neither seems to paying any attention to the other.

[ironglow]

It is said that gray foxes readily climb trees...ever seen it ?

[Ranger99]

It is said that gray foxes readily climb trees...ever seen it ?

Last year deer season
Just got in place with barely enough
light to see my hand in front of my face.
Something moves maybe 30 yards out,
my 1st thought was coyote. The silhouette
stops maybe 20 yards away, and is looking
up a tree. By this time I can tell it's too
small to be a coyote. I'm thinking neighbor's
dog. Well the thing climbs the tree about
5 feet up like a big squirrel. It goes right
back down and away.  Had to have been
a grey fox even though it wasn't light
enough to have seen it clearly