Red Fox Vulpes vulpes vixen grooming a dog fox

The resident Red Fox Vulpes vulpes vixen has a very gentle demeanour and this was certainly on display when a dog fox visited the garden. Note that when this film was originally edited the vixen was believed to have been a male (the sexes aren't always easy to separate!) so the title is erroneous. The first sequence shows the vixen prior to the arrival of the visiting animal and she is on the left of shot in the second clip (her fur is also redder than that of the second fox). Soft greeting calls were uttered and the vixen then proceeded to carefully and tenderly groom around the visitor's ear and eye so that she could remove any parasites. This almost submissive behaviour suggests that she knew the visitor and that he was another member of the same extended family, possibly one of her parents. Such altruism enables parasites to be removed from those hard to reach places and it may also provide a token amount of protein if ticks are eaten. As the whole sequence was not filmed it is not known if a similar grooming service had been offered in reverse beforehand. However, such close physical contact would almost certainly have enabled any fleas that they might have been carrying to have switched hosts as well!

[@waveandocean7598]

Thank you for your delightful sharing. Kind regards.

[@DavidPElement]

Thank you! David

[@zaracurtis7408]

great to see foxes back on your channel 🦊💟 great vid

[@DavidPElement]

Thank you - David

Hello David,
how did you manage to get this shooting?? 👍

[@DavidPElement]

Dear Rüdiger, Luck played a part as usual in these situations! I heard the soft contact calls coming from the garden and decided to video this behaviour from just inside our open French windows using torchlight rather than try to take stills using flash as the second (non-tame) fox would have run away instantly if I had blown my cover. Our resident dog fox is very used to me (he had already spent time with me in our garden earlier) and he never objects to being photographed or filmed. None of the other foxes in the area are tame enough to be photographed in this way. Best wishes, David