Charlie

There have been a few dead foxes around here over the past few months. One or two mangy ones, one bumpercarred one and one so dead that its smell had summoned recycling help from the carrion crows and was identifiable only by its brush.

 It was then with some pleasure that I met Very-Much-Alive-Charlie in one of the fields this evening. He's a youngish chap, probably from last year's cubcrop and he's not in the least bothered about meeting me by the light of my MightyBright Needlework Light. (No of course I can't do proper needlework, but I found this wonderful bendy-stalked light with a clip on it in a handicraft shop sale and it is the perfect handsfree torch for after-dark forays into fields and barns). Charlie looked at me, I looked at him, he flicked away unhurriedly, all but touching noses with Hoss in passing and vanished into the night. 

I've seen him a few times now, always at the same hour.  I think his track runs from the Owl-haunted tree line above the country-house hotel to the deeply-sunken lane below Hoss's field. He seems to have a pretty good routine and from the look of him gets enough to eat.  I wonder if he raids the bins or the henhouses (should that be henhice?) or does for himself by collecting hedgerow takeaways in the form of rabbits?  I know foxes are a pest but I do love to see them about.  

One of my neighbours lost a couple of guinea fowl recently and I bet Charlie Fox got the blame. They roost in trees when they live outdoors and make the hoots from hell if alarmed but no noise was heard, no debris found.  I feel a bit guilty really and I hope my neighbour doesn't read this Blog because I know where at least one of those birds went: HKC2 invited it home for dinner and wouldn't take no for an answer.