Gray Foxes Doing What They Do

Gray Fox with prey — a wood rat?

I was checking out one of the trail cameras when I discovered that it had files in its internal memory, in addition to the SD card where photos and videos normally would be stored.

They dated from 2019. I am not even sure of the location, but it would have been close to home. One, taken in low light on July 4, 2019, showed this fox with some prey animal in its mouth. A wood rat? A a baby squirrel? The infrared illumination makes for a soft image.

This month, I put some overripe bananas, some pumpkins, and a little peanut butter on a boulder up on the mountainside. No bears showed up, but the foxes did, as did the deer. Some video clips:

 Fox checks out some bananas.

Fox investigates pumpkin.

 

 Having snacked, the fox moves on.

 

Getting daytime photos was a surprise. I have only seen them in the daytime about three times over the years, although they turn up in the middle of the night on the cameras frequently,