One of my favorite things about this spring and early summer was having the opportunity to watch two fox dens near our home.

The first den, unfortunately, was underneath a shed on private property, and it was difficult to get a good view without trespassing.  But there were eight (!) kits at that den, and occasionally I caught a glimpse when one of them spilled out into an open area.

 

 

The second den was in a much better location – inside Yellowstone and not far from the road.  It was easy to stop by for a fox fix during my regular morning drives into the park.  When I first visited the den in May there were four tiny kits (more photos of them in this earlier post).

 

 

Quite a few people knew about the second den, so there were usually other photographers around.  Opinions about the right way to behave around the foxes ran strong, and tempers flared when there were disagreements.  Most people seemed to think that we needed to be concealed in a treeline about 40 yards away from the den, far enough from the kits to minimize our impact and hidden enough from the road to reduce the chances of attracting a crowd.  The informal consensus made sense to me, but I didn’t appreciate the anger and self-righteousness some photographers unleashed when someone failed to comply.  I cherished the rare tension-free moments when I had the den all to myself.

In early June it became clear that one of the four fox kits was sick.  Its snout was swollen and there was yellow discharge in its right eye.  I hoped the problem wasn’t serious, but then one day a text arrived from my photographer friend Jort saying that he’d just seen a dead fox kit on the ridge above the den.  We weren’t sure what happened – it might have been hit by a car – but I guessed that the sick kit had succumbed to its illness.

 

 

From then on, every time I walked down to the den I passed the poor kit’s decomposing carcass, a stark reminder that these adorable little furballs were constantly beset by mortal danger – sickness, speeding cars, larger predators, starvation.  The best data I could find on fox kit mortality suggests that only about one in four kits survives its first year.

In mid-June the kits faced a new challenge.  Snowmelt raised the level of Soda Butte Creek until it overflowed into a side channel that flooded their den and forced them to move.  At first I wasn’t sure where the kits had gone, but eventually I found two of them hanging out in an area of fallen trees just across the road from their den.  Over the next week I only saw two kits at their new location, and I began to assume that the third kit must have died at some point.

One of the two remaining kits was distinctive, both in personality and appearance.  He was bolder than his siblings, with a white spot on his chest and a smudge of darker fur on his head.  I told Marie so many stories about “the kit with the dark smudge” that before long we just started calling him Smudge.  Uncomfortable naming one and not the other, we decided that Smudge’s sister would be called Daisy.  (Deepest apologies to our neighbor Greg, who strongly disapproves of naming wild animals – despite, it must be noted, the fact that he named at least three of the foxes he sees around his cabin: Hermione, Tippy, and Stubby…)

 

 

 

At one point I saw Smudge dart across the road without paying any attention to traffic.  A truck, slamming on its breaks, narrowly missed him.  “It’s only a matter of time,” I said to Marie.  I would hold my breath as I drove by the den each morning, terrified of seeing Smudge or Daisy dead on the road.  And then it happened.  In the pre-dawn dark I came across a fox carcass on the road by the den.  I couldn’t tell if it was Smudge or Daisy.

Either way, it tore me up.  I’d been watching this little fox family almost every day for over a month and it was impossible not to grow attached.  I kept thinking about all the effort that went into raising that kit, the joy that poured out when the kits played with each other, how much life should have been left.  I struggled to make sense of it.

Soda Butte Creek had returned to its banks by then and the den began to dry out.  The next morning I found Daisy down by the den, which meant the dead fox had been Smudge.  I may have been projecting, but Daisy looked sad and lonely.  All her siblings were gone.

And then a few days later I was watching Daisy when a second kit suddenly popped out of the den.  It was Smudge!  I couldn’t believe it.  The unaccounted-for third kit that I assumed had been killed a while back must have been the one that was hit by the car.  I felt a roller coaster rush of relief and happiness.  Smudge, sitting next to Daisy, gave me a look like, “What’s the big deal?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Later one of the fox parents – I think the mom – showed up to check on the kits.  Smudge and Daisy smothered her with affection.  The three of them spent over an hour playing together in the tall summer grass.  No other photographers seemed to realize that the kits had returned to their den post-flood, so from then on I was able to watch the foxes without having to worry about anyone else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In early July I left town for 10 days (to hike the Sneffels Traverse in Colorado with friends), and when I returned home I was eager to check on the kits.  For two days there was no sign of them and I began to worry, but it’s normal for kits to spend more time exploring away from the den as they get older.  Eventually Daisy reappeared, and the next day Smudge showed up too.  I couldn’t have been happier to see them.

 

 

 

 

The fox dens didn’t monopolize all my attention in June and July.  I started many mornings with the short hike up to Trout Lake, where last year I often saw otters.  This year, frustratingly, I didn’t find a single otter or even any sign of them.  There were no little bits of fish on the logs where they liked to eat, there was never any poop on the rock they’d previously used as a latrine, and for weeks there was a dead trout in shallow water that remained uneaten.  I heard third-hand that someone did see an otter up there, but I was completely shut out.  Given that otter sightings were extremely rare over the winter as well, I began suffering from a serious case of otter withdrawal.

I may not have seen otters at Trout Lake, and I only saw one black bear (briefly) and two moose, but I did get better at finding smaller creatures in and out of the water.  I saw muskrats, ospreys, blue herons, a belted kingfisher, bald eagles, ground squirrels, lots of water fowl, and – for the first time – a frog (probably a Columbia spotted frog) at the edge of the lake.  It also turned out that the nuthatch nest I saw last year was active again, but this time with just one chick.

 

 

 

 

 

During the second half of July I saw Smudge and Daisy by their den less and less, which I hoped meant they were spending more time away from the road.  As of late July they were both happy and healthy, but I’ll never stop worrying.  I feel terrible and selfish to have contributed so much to their habituation, but – on the positive side – I haven’t seen any indication that they’ve been fed by people.  I’ve never seen them eat human food, and I’ve never seen them approach people or cars to beg.  All my fingers are crossed that they figure out how dangerous the road is before it’s too late.