When gray foxes are happy to see each other they lay their ears flat, get low to the ground, and swish their tails back and forth. If they were house cats, you would know that someone was about to get eviscerated. However, among foxes it means “I love you and I am so, so, so happy to see you that I can hardly stand it”.
If gray foxes are truly beside themselves with joy they flip over onto their backs and roll around, and the foxes in this video were truly beside themselves with joy.
Our summer-of-2025 wild gray fox families gave us 3 months of critter-watching fun. Mama Fox, Scruffles Fox, and Papa Fox together raised 2 litters of 3 beautiful kits each, and Dolly and Pale Fox had their one absolutely perfect little female.
This video shows Papa Fox with 2 of the younger kits. They moved into our magic tree den in July (we don’t know where the rest of the kits were living then). At the end of the video we get a glimpse of Mama Fox, who arrived to call everyone to order and remind them that excessive displays of affection are un-fox-worthy.
#texasbackyardwildlife