The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is an animal to be found all around Europe, Ireland included. It is not so usual that they show up in urban areas in daytime. A couple of weeks ago we were in a café, looking through the window. This place is at The Point, an area of Dublin relatively close to the city centre (5 minutes by car or 25 on foot to O’Connell Bridge in the main street). Suddenly three foxes enter a depot.
At first time they could have been taken by dogs, but they had that gait so peculiar in foxses. My photographs are not so good, as the distance was a considerable one and there was a dusted pane of glass in the middle.
From the café’s window, on a 4th floor or so
Zooming a little
This is the best one
Then I investigated and read a little about this animal. Apparently they don’t go out to see the sunlight or populated areas but in their reproductive period, from December to February, the dog follows the vixen wherever she goes without caring about safety or survival. In fact, the couple of foxes that appears in the photograph was sniffing around the railway facilities and from time to time they stopped to mate.
The third fox arrived some fifteen minutes later and enter the warehouse that can be seen beside the van on the first photograph. The couple ended up crossing the tracks en mounting the coal load in the background. I think the rail tracks, combined with the Royal Canal, may be the corridor by which these animals access the city.
In any case this was a little uncommon experience and an opportunity to learn something about Irish wildlife.
(06.01.2013)
* A blog about foxes in Ireland, in which they say they even get into houses in the noblest neighbourhoods of this capital.
