{"id":19812,"date":"2013-06-16T22:36:46","date_gmt":"2013-06-17T06:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sparselysageandtimely.com\/blog\/?p=19812"},"modified":"2023-12-17T14:46:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-17T22:46:17","slug":"fox-news-in-point-reyes-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/?p=19812","title":{"rendered":"Fox News in Point Reyes Station"},"content":{"rendered":"

A coyote walked past Mitchell cabin five minutes ago<\/strong>, which brings up the question: what other critters are around at this time of the year? Summer will begin Friday, but on this hill some creatures still have quite a bit of spring in their step, as these photos from the past week illustrate.<\/p>\n

_________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A female gray fox has become a daily visitor to Mitchell cabin<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Foxes are tricksters<\/strong>, as many cultures realize.<\/p>\n

And the expression “crazy as a fox” has been around far longer than any of us have.<\/p>\n

So it was no accident when Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp decided to call its off-the-wall reporting “Fox News.” ____________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Finding dinner ready on the picnic table<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This vixen shows up in late afternoon<\/strong> shortly after Lynn and I put out birdseed for our cage-free aviary, which at the moment includes: red-winged blackbirds, tri-color blackbirds, scrub jays, stellar jays, sparrows, finches, towhees, doves, crows, ravens, quail, ring-tailed pigeons, juncos, chickadees, and doves. We call their feeding time “the evening bird show.”<\/p>\n

Foxes love birdseed as much as birds do, and I recently witnessed the vixen licking birdseed off my deck while a white-crowned sparrow just overhead pecked birdseed off the railing. _____________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

By now the vixen sort of trusts Lynn and me. Here Lynn hands her a couple of slices of bread. It’s a friendly exchange. This particular fox’s table manners are surprisingly dainty \u00e2\u20ac\u201d no snapping at the hand that feeds her. ____________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After receiving her bread, the vixen usually foxtrots off a short distance to eat, apparently preferring to do her chewing in private. ________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A second fox, <\/strong>a male, visits us after dark.<\/p>\n

However, that’s also the time when two or three raccoons show up to be hand fed their own slices of bread.<\/p>\n

If the raccoons aren’t fed immediately, they often doze by the kitchen door, waiting to be noticed.<\/p>\n

The fox and raccoons never fight, but they’re leery of each other.<\/p>\n

The more-nimble fox, however, always finds a way to avoid confrontations with them. And I’ve sometimes watched while the quick gray fox jumps over the sleeping coon.<\/p>\n

I learned a few years ago that I can get them to eat side by side by putting out two handfuls of peanuts in close proximity on the deck. The lure of honey-roasted peanuts is obviously stronger than their suspicion of each other, as this photo from last week demonstrates. ___________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One critter that no doubt is pleased we’re feeding the foxes is the jackrabbit that hangs out in my fields. I’m sure a hungry fox would be delighted to dine on hare if it could catch one. But it would find it far easier to catch the jackrabbit’s slower-footed cousin, the cottontail rabbit.<\/p>\n

Well, that’s our fair and balanced fox news<\/strong> for this week. Stay tuned for Sean Hannity’s harangue against these atheists in foxholes<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A coyote walked past Mitchell cabin five minutes ago, which brings up the question: what other critters are around at this time of the year? Summer will begin Friday, but on this hill some creatures still have quite a bit of spring in their step, as these photos from the past week illustrate. _________________________________________________________ A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10,11],"tags":[414,28,336],"class_list":["post-19812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-point-reyes-station","category-west-marin-nature","category-wildlife","tag-fox-news","tag-gray-foxes","tag-jackrabbit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19812"}],"version-history":[{"count":58,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40354,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19812\/revisions\/40354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparselysageandtimely.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}