Foxy Vixen Booty Call (OT)

I was out in the pool table shed yesterday around nightfall, knocking balls into the pockets, when I heard the most ungodly sound—a wild, haunting cry like something out of a horror movie; something between a shriek and a yowl. It seemed to come from close by. Butters, my nine-year-old dog, who was out in the pool shed with me, became agitated. I heard other dogs barking at the noise from much farther away. Butters dropped his ball and began whining and whimpering excitedly, racing between the door and the window. Again and again it sounded. I listened intently, trying to discern what it was. It seemed to be coming from somewhere down the road south of the house.

The first thing that occurs to me in such a situation is, do I need to help? But I quickly realized the sound was not human. Could it be a dying animal? Something run over by a car? Possibly. It was a mournful sound that seemed to trail off in a sort of moan; it seemed to imply that some sort of violence was occurring. I decided to get Butters inside—I have a slight fear of wild coyotes in the woods at night, as they are known to occasionally prey on domestic dogs. As we went through the back door I found myself shuddering at yet another of these cries and thinking, whatever the heck that is, I am not going to investigate. It's out there, and we'll just stay safely in here.

Then it struck me what it could be. And I thought: I am going out to investigate! Maybe I'll get a chance to see it? So I got my coat and boots on and grabbed a powerful flashlight. Leaving the dog behind, I headed off between my outbuildings out to the road. The scream sounded again, very close.

The temperature was just barely above freezing. It had been raining most of the day, and everything outdoors was wet. It was all but totally dark—there was just enough light left to discern that the sky was still overcast. The Summer people have all departed, so there were no cheerful porch lights or window lights anywhere—the houses were just hulking masses of blacker black against the fast-falling darkness. And the trees are all leafless now.

I stood listening in the cold, wet darkness. Nothing. Did it know I was there? Stepping gently and softly, I walked slowly down the road, barely able to see, keeping the light off so my night vision would improve. I reached the bridge over the creek, looking back into the gloom of the creekbed as it receded up the hillside, and paused again to listen.

On the bridge I was above the creek, but the creek comes down a gully or ravine, and, especially on the south side, opposite my land, the bank juts sharply upward and looms over the road. The big trees that cover it tower far above that.

The howl sounded again, loud, and seemingly right across from where I stood! 

I made my best guess, pointed the flashlight, and switched it on. It illuminated, dimly, the craggy line of the top of the steep bank, and cast a circle of light on the bank and the lower parts of the trees nearest me—right in the middle of which, unmistakably, were two animal eyes staring back at me, shining brilliantly with reflected light!

I looked for a moment and turned the light off, so as not to ruin my night vision, and the animal howled again, softer than before. Switching the light back on, I saw the two bright eyes watch me for a few seconds then turn away. As the animal got up and began to walk, she came out from behind the stump that had been obscuring most of her body and I could see her entire profile. Although she and everything else looked faint and greyish in the weak light, I saw her entire body from nose to the extravagant tail, called a brush. A red fox.

That's what I had realized it might be, back at the house. Conditions here this year have been kind to foxes—I've seen more of them than any other year I've lived here. And foxes scream—that's a usual term for the noise I had been hearing. The male, called the tod, or reynard, or dog fox, will scream to warn other males off his territory, but the ones who mostly scream are the females, to signify to nearby males that they are there and ready to mate. It's actually a little early for that yet, so maybe the one I saw was a male staking his claim to his turf; who knows?

So it's no wonder Butters got worked up at the sound of the screams—foxes are distantly related to dogs, fellow members of the canidae family. 

She—or he, as the case may be—disappeared into the woods and didn't scream again. The next time we hear that scary scream from the woods in the night, I will know exactly what it is, and I'll know not to worry—it doesn't mean some sort of horrible violence is has occurred in the night. It's the foxes, sending messages only other foxes can properly decode.

Mike

Featured Comments:

Mark Sampson: "When I lived in Alexandria, Virginia, red foxes were common in the neighborhood, and sometimes in the evening, or at night, they would scream like that. My wife said 'like someone was murdering a baby.' It was a quiet, if crowded, neighborhood of town houses...one evening I heard a fox's scream just before taking the dog out. As we went by the next row of buildings, I saw two policemen walking from their car. I asked 'what's up?' and one said 'we had a call for someone screaming.' I said 'I've just heard a fox.' And one cop said 'Yeah, that's what we thought, but we have to check it out, have a good evening,' and we went on our respective ways. There are stories about our dog getting loose and chasing the fox, but those are for another time...."

Mike Ferron: "Way back when there was a blood-curdling, non-human scream from the woods behind the house one night. It sounded otherworldly and yes it was disturbing. Just might have been a 🦊...."

Dave Millier: "I live in London. There are foxes everywhere. If you drive around the neighbourhood, you will see 20 in 10 minutes. A family lives next door to me. The cubs are hilarious; I can often watch them from my bedroom window, rolling around and play fighting. Not so amusing when one of them broke into our Eglu and ate the chickens. And they do make an unearthly horror-movie wailing and screaming that sounds like murder being done. They are not closely related to dogs (which come from wolf stock); more closely related to raccoons. There is a fox selective breeding experiment where foxes developed dog-like appearance and behaviour within a few generations. It is fascinating in itself but when I checked the details for this comment, it appears things may not be as they seem. Some light reading."

Mike replies: Or not so light; but thanks for that. The Russian Farm-Fox Experiment was featured in the NOVA documentary "Dogs Decoded," which I loved and recommend to anyone who will listen. (It's getting hard to find.) It was nice to catch up with that a little.

Comments

[Tom Passin]

"foxes are related to dogs, fellow members of the canidae family"

Not *very* related, though. They are members of different genera, have different numbers of chromosomes, and can't interbreed.

[terence morrissey]

Good story Mike.

[Timothy Auger]

It is a scary sound. We have any number of foxes in central London, and they do sometimes scare the pants off people with that cry. The first time you hear it will get you all a-tremble.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Nice woodsy story. But no photo? Didn’t you have your iPhone? I bet it would’ve done a good job even in the dark.

[Night mode, as you might have discovered, does not do a good job with moving subjects. And in any event, looking at the bright screen would have put paid to my night vision, and I might not have seen anything! --Mike]

[Mark]

If called by a Panther, don't anther.

-Ogden Nash

[Dogman]

The fox's scream, the elk's bugle. Once you hear those, you don't forget them.

[Roger Bradbury]

There are plenty of foxes here in Milton Keynes, and I hear them screaming sometimes. Years ago I'd often see them late at night crossing a big roundabout near my home, that had slip roads down to a big dual carriageway.

I was told that the foxes lived in the middle of the roundabout, on the sides of the cutting the dual carriageway ran in. It's ideal. The cutting sides were made up land so good for digging, and few humans wanted or needed to go there so they weren't disturbed, even though they were in the middle of a large town.

[Sean]

I encountered a fox on my night walk last week. It appeared out of the bushes ahead of me and, on seeing I was in its path, walked around the railings and into the road. We tracked each other from our side of the rail until the fox came to the crossing section and cut back onto my side. We turned to look at each other and paused long enough for me to tell it that ‘I’m no less a part of nature than you, friend.’ Not sure either of us believed it

[Jim Arthur]

Your title made me laugh and the word vixen tipped me off before I started. Great story.

I’ve lived in the Sonoran desert for a long time and have always enjoyed hiking and camping. The sound of a nearby coyote pack howling, yelping, and whining in the darkness when you are miles from the nearest road really gets your attention. The Coyote Wikipedia page has a recording of a pack howl if you’ve never heard it. I’m used to it now and can just enjoy the wilderness experience but it always freaks out my visitors. When I lived in Phoenix I had a desert mountain park as a backyard and when the young, dumb bunnies were abundant the coyotes would come down out of the park to hunt them. I would sometimes awaken at 2 a.m. to the sound of a pack howling outside my bedroom window. I always assumed they were celebrating a kill but they could have been howling for several reasons. I would just lie there staring at the ceiling…waiting for the mayhem to die down…and then try to focus on good thoughts until I drifted off.

[hugh crawford]

Here in California we have gray foxes There have been quite a few around our house recently. Gray foxes are excellent climbers and sometimes they like to survey the area from the roof of our house, which makes for lots of interesting noise at night. This past summer I was eating my breakfast at a table in our courtyard, and six foxes suddenly peeked over the edge of the roof to see what I was doing.
Haven’t heard any vocalizations from the foxes, but there are skunks in the yard that seem to be having some sort of territorial dispute that make a lot of noise, and there are coyotes nearby that make lots of noise too, but they don’t come near the house.
Of course, none of it compares with the audio mayhem you get with a flock of peacocks.

[Ernest Zarate]

Peacocks.

[Don Craig]

Fact-checking Mike is asleep at the switch. Dave Miller writes: "They (foxes) are not closely related to dogs...more closely related to raccoons". While there is a raccoon dog, which is a dog, raccoons are Proyconids. Procyonidae is a New World family of the order Carnivora. It comprises the raccoons, ringtails, cacomistles, coatis, kinkajous, olingos, and olinguitos. Procyonids inhabit a wide range of environments and are generally omnivorous. Foxes are in the Canid family, subfamily Caninae, so not as close to dogs as wolves are, but canids they are - and definitely not raccoons. All this and more on Wikipedia.

[Re "Fact-checking Mike is asleep at the switch": I'll speak to him. --Mike the Ed.]

[Ed Kirkpatrick]

Foxes also bark which is what we commonly hear here in the DC/Maryland exurbs. The BBC has a recording of a fox barking and if you watch any BBC show taking place in the country, you will hear it in the background.

[KeithB]

"I have a slight fear of wild coyotes in the woods at night, which sometimes prey on domestic dogs."

Here in Albuquerque there are very few cats wandering the streets. I have always felt it was the coyotes, either the cat owners keeping the cats in because of fear, or the owners letting the cats out ...

[Fred Haynes]

Past the first two paragraphs, the way you wrote of your experience, finding the source of this mysterious howling read like a good thriller!
Maybe you missed your calling Mike. John Sanford, look out!
Fred

[Gary Merken]

Another Verlyn Klinkenborgian post from you, Mike. I love these lyrical descriptions of your home in the Finger Lakes for the past number of years. Keep 'em coming!

Thanks for the info on the reasons for the fox screams. I hear it too, in our neighborhood in suburban Philadelphia, and didn't know if they were fighting.

[Bill Tyler]

We have periodic visits by coyotes in my neighborhood. The sound they make is unforgettable, once heard. Occasionally I'll see one casually walking down the street. They never seem particularly alarmed or startled at a human presence, but do have a knack of disappearing into the woods. Interestingly, we used to have a lot of raccoons, but since the coyotes came, I haven't seen even one. Cause and effect?

[craig]

my kids gave me a night vision scope a few holidays ago

it is an excellent tool for exploring

though my first owl was much closer than i thought...most unnerving