Gray foxes and white-tailed deer fawns don’t seem like natural buddies, but they seem to share an almost affectionate curiousity about each other. We’ve often seen them here chasing around in the field together.
The worldly-wise among you may be saying “that’s not play, you fools, that’s predator/prey”, but we truly don’t think it is. The mama deer will watch her offspring’s antics without the slightest concern, and sometimes the fawn seems to be chasing the fox. If the fox had been a coyote or a dog, the mama doe would have rushed to intervene. We’ve seen that happen a few times, too.
This is a long preamble for a short, but very sweet, video. A gray fox and this year’s solitary fawn met near the tree stump den one summer morning and seemed to want to get acquainted. Our cameras recorded not one but two nose kisses, with the fox up on a stump both times so she could meet the fawn at fawn’s-eye level.
Two touches, a little sniff – and perhaps a promise to meet again soon? It was a magical moment.
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