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Post by sozzer on Jan 27, 2016 21:12:51 GMT
I had an amazing experience the other day when walking my dogs on the local beach at Leasowe on the Wirral. People were standing watching an area of rocks which the tide had surrounded. On asking what was going on I was told there was a fox on the rocks. Apparently there had been two, but one took the plunge and swam for shore running inbetween the onlookers to the safety of the sand dunes. The second for some reason stayed where he was. I was able to take a zoomed in video of him jumping from rock to rock and then took a still thinking it would be rubbish as he was so far away. But on getting home and cutting and cropping, I ended up with a good view of this lovely animal. The tide was going out fast so I am hoping that he was able to get back to dry land eventually. I presume they went onto the rocks to try and grab the odd dunlin or oyster catcher. The first picture is real time, the second the cropped one.   |
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Post by rowanberry on Jan 28, 2016 8:59:16 GMT
Ah, the poor thing looks quite distressed... it appears to be panting.
If he did make it back to the shore ok, I imagine it will be a while before he attempts oyster-catcher catching again!
Great photos though, Sozzer
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Post by htcdude on Feb 1, 2016 16:53:36 GMT
How bizarre! Not heard of that before!
Nige
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Post by dogghound on Feb 1, 2016 18:00:02 GMT
Great observation, hopefully it managed to get off as the tide went down. They can swim quite well so should be ok. There are a number of coastal foxes close to me which patrol the local seabird colonies where they look around the bases of the cliffs (and often part way up) for chicks, eggs or dead/injured birds. We also have one (or more) which exhibits similar behaviour to yours in that it walks right out onto Filey Brigg (a similar spur of rock which gets cut off/submerged by high tide) where they feed on wrecked/washed up auks, shags etc and possibly predates waders too. You often find scats and prey remains there.
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Post by Tringa on Feb 2, 2016 8:57:58 GMT
Excellent observation and record of it. I have only seen a fox swimming once (in a local lake) but all my fox observations are in an urban areea so there is not so much pressure to find food.
Your sighting shows just how animals will exploit any resource.
Dave
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