Now are the foxes

On another futile rose-breasted grosbeak watch this morning, I looked out across the golf course beyond our property line and spotted a couple of red foxes.

It’s not unusual to see a fox trotting across the course, sometimes even venturing onto our backyard grass. The golf course maintenance superintendent told me that foxes have lived on the course for at least 20 years.

Typically I see one fox at a time, and once in a while I’ll see two. Today’s total started at two and, amazingly, ended up at six. I can’t say with certainty, but it seemed as if there were two parents and four kits. The foxes were out of range of my camera, but through binoculars and even with the naked eye, I saw a Disney-esque scene, the kits chasing and wrestling one another playfully on an embankment while Mom and Dad looked on.

Adding further to the idyll was that in the foreground, near the garden plot in the back yard, a couple of squirrels romped about, snacking on whatever had fallen from the trees overnight.

But playtime was soon over. One of the adult foxes moved onto the golf course, surveyed the landscape and started out intently on what I assume was a mission to bring back breakfast.

The odds, my squirrel friends, are not in your favor.