Gray foxes climb trees. They do it for safety, they do it to hunt squirrels and birds, and they do it for fun. When they’re young, 99.99% of tree climbing is all about fun.
This video shows little Frances, Dolly and Broken Ear’s single kit in 2023, testing her independence and learning to climb. Mama Dolly seems completely unconcerned about the risk of falling. We can almost hear her thinking: “If she falls, she falls. She’ll probably bounce”.
Interestingly, though, Dolly didn’t seem quite so sanguine about finding Frances outside the protected den playpen area right at the beginning of this story. Baby foxes bounce pretty happily, apparently, but being picked up by a passing coyote is no joke.
We watched this fox family on our livestream during the summer of 2023 and completely fell in love with them. We have hours and hours of video clips, and we’re obviously a bit behind in our publishing. We’ll keep going until all the great video is up. And then we’ll get to work on this year’s magic tree den and tree stump den families – we have lots of editing to do.
Where are they now?
Broken Ear, the father fox, died in early 2024 and Dolly found a new mate, Pale Fox, who also has a wonky ear. They’ve been together ever since. Frances disappeared into the undergrowth one day when she got tired of being left alone in the den, and became part of the extended family of gray foxes we watch here in our yard. We can’t identify her, but we’re pretty sure she’s alive and well.
#texasbackyardwildlife