Hidden in the Shadows: A Fox Tale

It is always with a small shred of sadness that I look out from my bedroom window on a cold night and spy some creature out there looking for something to eat. What bird seed I toss out during the day is usually long gone by nightfall, so it is perhaps the scent of those gleanings that attracts such animals as skunks, raccoons, foxes and opossums.

A few nights ago, it was a small fox, its coloring more clearly visible in the light from a gibbous moon. Nose to the ground, it moved in circles on a thin layer of snow, stopping every few seconds to nibble on something it found before continuing in its nocturnal ramblings. When I looked out again a few minutes later, it was gone, startled perhaps by a loud thump from the apartment next door...a door slamming or something dropped...actions foreign to such a creature whose entire existence depends, not on doors and the sounds humans produce in their daily comings and goings, but on whatever it is that nature or said humans provide by way of sustenance. 

There is something touching about seeing such a creature going about its business when the rest of the world is settling down for the night, and also something admirable in the way it is driven to honor its survival instincts. A wild animal’s needs are few...food, water, shelter, warmth, protection from predators. Yet, their entire lives are devoted to the pursuit , acquisition and safeguarding of those needs, and all with an unquestioning dedication and drive.

Wild animals instinctively make the connection between having enough to eat and starvation. No one need tell them this. They just know. Connections are made in their brains with which they do not argue, and off they go, in the dead of night and in all types of weather and extremes of temperature, to seek out shelter, evade a predator, forage for food, or sip water from a stream. No one need tell a chipmunk that the hawk perched on a branch high up in a tree is zeroing in on it, so it had better be quick with whatever it is up to. Most times, the chipmunk is, but not always…

And so it goes in the world of nature’s wild creatures. Vices such as laziness or carelessness do not, cannot, exist among them, for both shortcomings usually prove to be fatal in the end. And that’s why that fox was so manically determined to find something to eat that night and also why it bolted at the first sound of possible danger.

I tried to imagine what it must be like to have to go out after dark on a cold night to look for something to eat. I wondered, too, where the fox’s den might have been, if it was a female in search of nutrients for the upcoming breeding season, or just checking the “fridge” for a night-time snack. Not having any real answers to those questions, I stopped conjecturing and just watched it...a shadowy gray shape, fluffy tail jutting out straight behind it...some red in the fur showing in the dim light...lifting its head every so often to sniff the air and check for things that weren’t quite right.

A wild thing moved stealthily and quietly just inches from my window and from me...my cat mercifully silent through it all. Then, without warning, it vanished into the great darkness of the woods, taken in by tree trunk shadows, absorbed...as though it had never been there.

As I lay down to my own rest, in my warm, safe and cozy room, my thoughts followed the fox into those cold heartless woods, trailed behind as it negotiated all the fallen logs and woodland debris, large rocks and small gullies, and whatever else lay within...imagined it stopping every few feet to sniff the air and assess dangers, if any lay in its meandering path…

I hoped the fox’s den wasn’t too far away on that frigid night.

I wished for safety and warmth for this solitary creature wending its lonely way home.