Have Feet Will Travel

Sly Fox                                       12 April 2008

It looks like sage wisdom, a problem solved from a distance, from an ever-calculating mind.  It looks like pure genius.  A fox, it would seem, has sat back on his haunches and watched with delight as the gentle greens of early spring have fallen victim to the icy grasp of a late winter storm.  The water has been open for weeks and is now frozen solid.  The nests of geese have no moat to protect them.  The fox, it would seem, has made a great plan and sets out in search of eggs.

How does this fox know? Is it experience?  It couldn't be, since events like this are very rare and foxes too short-lived to have archived such a memory.

Is it the ability to conceptualize, to think of the system and come to a conclusion? Is this the result of reasoning? It would certainly be an impressive task of reasoning.

I think it is all in the feet.  Foxes are masters of their territories, learning every in and out, every escape, every napping spot, every changing texture, and they do the work of mastery in all four seasons.  Foxes trot for hours, and they go where they can at every opportunity.  It has been said that "Luck is when opportunity meets preparation."  I'd like to add that it is what happens when opportunity comes of perseverance.

Once the path across the ice reveals an angry goose, a nest, an egg, the fox is quickly conditioned to the nature of the hunt.  One egg is all it takes, and the reward invites the behavior over and over again.  In short order, the fox ransacks the marsh.   The weather has turned on the geese, and it invites the predator to do double trouble.

More than it can eat in one meal, the fox caches the eggs under fallen oak logs high up on the sandy hills.  One egg at a time, the fox returns to explore the frozen bounty, pushing geese to their feet and stealing a version of the future from them, giving this future instead to itself.  Life necessarily is built in the taking of life.  Today, the fox lives on.

The temperatures have been bitter cold, and the wind and snow blow fiercely across the open landscape.  For spring arrivals, this is a terrible April Fool.  The Sandhill Cranes protest in cackling calls. The Hermit Thrush and the Fox Sparrow are durable and can take the cold.  They perch among the pussy willows and a paradoxically false promise of a warming Spring. Sharp-tailed Grouse enthusiastically dance on the lek, invigorated with the length of the day and the hormones that follow.  The geese, well armored against the deepest cold, must still battle the rapid freeze of the water.  

Somehow, an adult goose has died.  The fox may well have killed it while battling for eggs, but this seems just out of reach of the fox's ability.  Maybe a lucky shot, a sharp canine through the neck, dodging angry wing spurs, the fox may well have earned this meal by fight alone.  Perhaps the goose was partially frozen into the lake, seeking the last open water for cover and staying too long.  The fox feasts on the goose and strips meals to run ashore and bury.

Two wings, two oaks.  The fox buries the meat and feathers near to the hidden eggs, covering the catch in a mix of snow, sand and branches.  The show has lasted more than an hour, and the fox, satisfied with the day, trots far to the east and out of view into the confusion of drifting snow, giant falling flakes, and the alders, pussy willows, and hazel brush.

Trumpeter Swans hail and bugle the triumphant return of Spring.  It is obvious in their voices but nowhere else, nowhere near, nowhere I can think of in the deepening snow.   The fox must be smirking, and, maybe a little inspired by this hunter, my own mind drifts on to thoughts of roast venison and a hot drink.  I head for home.  Miigwetch Waagosh!

All images were made with a Canon Rebel XTi and Canon prime 300mm f4 IS flourite lens.  The Sandhill Cranes were pretty good guides for this trip, leading me to the fox in their own behaviors.  When you see something out of place, even a bird's behavior, it is as much a trail as a track in the snow.  May the geese return each and every Spring, and may the odds be tipped to them from time to time too.