Over the years, the rabbit population in our Highlands Ranch neighborhood had reached a point where on any given late summer afternoon I could count up to a dozen rabbits nibbling the grass and flowers in our yard. Then, about 5 years ago we started to see a fox! At first it was one and then it was a pair! The rabbits were looking a little nervous.
The next year we had a pair of foxes make their den underneath our neighbor’s front porch. Pretty soon it was a family. We saw the mom & dad frequently and on a few occasions even their kits. The parents were a little aggressive that year, not running off if humans were near their den.
Fortunately the people and the foxes pretty much respected each other’s space. The rabbits weren’t so lucky! Last year, I don’t think I saw a single rabbit in our yard the entire summer. It seems the foxes weren’t seeing them either and moved on too.
Since early April of this year, we’ve seen a fox or foxes around several times. Then on Easter morning, as we were having breakfast, we looked out our back window to see this fox sitting on our fence. She (pretty sure it was a she) was watching something going on across the road. She sat there for about 5 minutes before moving off.
It will be interesting to see what happens. The rabbits aren’t back, so we may not have anything on our street to make them want to hang around this year. We live almost in the middle of Highlands Ranch and our neighborhood is about 20 years old, so it’s not as though they’re coming from any big undeveloped area just to look for food.
If you have small pets, you will probably want to keep an eye on them when they’re outdoors. And if you have lots of rabbits on your street, I’m guessing the foxes can’t be too far behind.
Photographer’s Note:
I usually try to keep a camera handy and ready for unique opportunities like this. In the photo of the fox with the flowers in the background, I walked out my front door, saw the fox, turned around, walked back in my house, picked up the camera and went back outside. I managed to shoot 2 frames before the fox decided to wander off. I was lucky I had a long telephoto lens on the camera at the time or I would have missed this one!
David Sutphin is a professional photographer that specializes in portrait photography for high school seniors, families and business. He lives in Highlands Ranch and operates a private photography studio in Englewood, Colorado.