A Black Fox

I’ve always got an ear to the ground for interesting
wildlife sightings. So when I had a call from a customer saying he had seen a
jet-black fox near his flat, my ears pricked up.

There are only thought to be a handful of such creatures in
the country. Although black in colour, they are technically known as ‘silver
foxes’ since the fur is tipped with white. The coloration is all down to
genetics. Historically, silver foxes were among the most valued for
their fur. Their silver-black skins were worn by nobles in Russia, Western
Europe, and China and their pelts were considered to be of a higher quality
even than that of a pine marten, beaver or otter.

But whilst they are virtually unheard of in Britain, I’ve
read that silver foxes make up to 8% of Canada’s red fox population.

I gasped audibly down the phone as my customer told me he
had seen the male black-coloured fox early in the morning on the opposite side
of a steep valley from his flat.

He was so enthusiastic about his sighting it was hard not to
get caught up by his stories of ‘Black Fox’, as he named it.

Soon after our telephone conversation, this customer came
across to my gallery in Thixendale to show me his video footage.

He was quite a character. He arrived wearing a smart green
tweed suit, tie and top hat. Jayne, who works in my gallery, welcomed him in by
saying. “You’re looking really smart are you going somewhere nice?” To which he
replied: “Yes: Here!”

His real name was Robert Burns, but he introduced himself as
‘Black Fox Bob’, which made me chuckle. I couldn’t wait to see his footage so we went through to the
house and plugged his camera in to my widescreen TV.

As the video played, I couldn’t quite believe what I was
seeing. I was expecting the fox to be dark, but this fox was as black as a Labrador, with just the hint of silver highlights
along its body. It had a beautiful white tip to its tail, just like a red fox.

I watched entranced as Robert flicked through the footage.
It was amazing how relaxed the silver fox seemed given that there was a busy
dual carriageway just 20 yards further up the steep bank. This behaviour was
very different to that of country foxes that I see here in Thixendale which are
very wary.

The footage was a little shaky but nevertheless ‘Black Fox
Bob’ had caught some fantastic sequences of two foxes, a black one and a common
red one.

One of my favourite of his clips was of Black Fox flirting
with a young red vixen. The vixen was sitting beneath him on the steep bank. He
slid on his belly down the incline to join her, pulling himself along with his
front legs and trailing his back legs and tail behind him. As he slipped alongside
her, he stopped and stood up, then walked round her to regain the high ground.

He tried to be tender, sniffing around her face, but she
rebuffed him with such a sharp snap that he slid down the bank. He got up to
try again. This time, he wasn’t so charming and grabbed at her tail with his
teeth as he slid past. But then a few minutes later he sidled over to her and
licked her round the muzzle. She sat upright and they both looked down the
valley together. Then she curled up into a ball and put her head down to rest
and started cleaning and grooming herself.

‘Black Fox’ rushed towards her, excited by his success.
Next, he jumped over her and bounded away into some trees. Then he ran back and
pounced on her. He misjudged and his front legs landed heavily on to her body.
She looked less than impressed by these boyish antics and skulked off to sleep
in some undergrowth.

I asked Black Fox Bob to keep me up to date with his
sightings. I was impressed with his diligence. I started to receive a stream of
highly-detailed letters and late night phone calls with all the latest news. He
was becoming as ‘fox-obsessed’ as I can be when I’m watching a wildlife
subject. Black Fox Bob was so hooked he had even designed his own black fox
logo.

 I decided I had to
see this unusual fox for myself.

The problem was that it usually made an appearance between
4am and 6am. At the time, my summer exhibition was in full swing and I was tied
up with filming a weasel family in my garden for BBC’s The One Show.

By the end of June, Black Fox Bob informed me that a larger
male fox had come on the scene. Bob called this one ‘Daddy Fox’ and it sounded
as though this large male seemed intent on taking over Black Fox’s patch.
Judging from appearances, Black Fox was last year’s cub, so his chances weren’t
great.

To make the situation worse, the young vixen I had seen
footage of Black Fox flirting with had disappeared and an old vixen had come
onto the scene. Poor Black Fox appeared to be confused and lost without his
mate and sightings had become unreliable.

Then Black Fox Bob reported that Black Fox had got mange on
his tail. He was worried it would spread.

Things took a turn for the better in August, when Black Fox
Bob reported that Black Fox’s mange had recovered and he now had another vixen mate.
Black Fox Bob called this new lady ‘New Red’.

His video footage was still a bit on the shaky side as well
as small on the screen and he was keen for my advice on how to get better
shots. It turned out that he had been filming the fox from over 200 yards, so I
suggested that he either needed to get closer to the foxes or get the foxes
closer to him by using food as bait.

Black Fox Bob began a regime of slowly leaving a trail of
food that led closer and closer to his flat window. The ploy worked a treat and
soon he was getting some much better video footage. He sent me some clips of
the two foxes. It looked to me like they had paired up and may well go onto
mate in the winter. I wonder if we will get some black cubs next spring.

On one clip, New Red was filmed eating and looking up from
time to time, as if she was waiting for something. Then Black Fox appeared out
of the undergrowth and she rushed over to meet him. They touched noses by way
of a greeting and he gave her an endearing lick on her ear before they began
playfully chasing each other across the grass.

Then at the beginning of September, I got further news and
another video. This time it featured New Red being attacked by a local feral
cat. Black Fox was less intimidated by the cat and protected his girl by
sitting directly in between the two; staring fixedly at the cat so that New Red
could feed in peace.

This and all the clips and news I had had since I first
heard of Black Fox made me feel I knew him well and now the urge to see Black Fox
for myself could no longer be ignored. So this month I headed off to Black Fox
Bob’s town flat in West Yorkshire.

He was amazed when I arrived and opened the boot of my car.
Inside I had packed boxes and bags full of lights, flashes, infrared cameras,
dimmer switches, wires, tripods, clamps, SLR cameras and lenses.

We loaded all this gear into his flat and Bob took me on a
tour of the fox’s territory. Bob’s flat overlooks a steep valley which I
jokingly referred to as ‘Black
Fox Canyon’.
He showed me where the foxes run through the undergrowth and where they slept
too. 

But we were conscious of the time and soon returned to his
flat to set my equipment up. As dusk started to fall we were ready. I had
linked an infrared camera to the TV in his living room so we wouldn’t miss a
single movement outside.

The hours passed as we chatted about Black Fox, but by
11.00pm we had seen nothing – just the feral cat that had unsettled New Red. We
decided to name this character ‘Scarface Claw’, after the children’s classic
Slinky Malinki.

Then five minutes later, Bob said in a relieved voice: ‘He’s
here’. We tiptoed into Bob’s bedroom to get a better view out of the window.
I’d rigged his garden with security lights earlier that day and I gradually
turned them on with a dimmer switch.

The black fox didn’t seem overly upset by this new
development, although was less sure of the flash when I took a photograph. Thankfully
after a few shots he relaxed and settled down to eat the food that Black Fox
Bob had put out for him. I got a final shot before he trotted off on his rounds
of his territory, melting into the darkness of the city.