Just lucky?

Back to the foxes

As mentioned in a previous blog, the Amsterdamse Waterleiding Duinen (AWD) is a beautiful area for hiking and for spotting wildlife. Not only will you see numerous fallow deer, but the chance of spotting a fox is relatively high.
Since we had been quite successful at a fox den that we had discovered, we got up early another morning to try our luck once again. However, this morning seemed to stay quite quiet. After several hours of patiently waiting near the den, we still hadn’t seen an animal. Since we had planned more things for the day (our teaching job can be quite demanding…), we decided to get up and hike back to the car park. We increased our speed a bit and took one of the shorter routes back.

Surprising encounter

It was a lovely walk along one of the canals and we enjoyed the scenery. Then we saw something familiar…wasn’t that a fox peacefully sleeping on the opposite canal bank? We decided to take a closer look and discovered the fox had gotten up and was digging up a rat she had buried earlier.
Once pulled safely from the sand of the dunes, the fox took the rat in her mouth and set off at a slow walk. We followed her at a distance, and she kept looking back and stopping, as if she was waiting for us to catch up. Since we didn’t want to scare her, we stayed at a respectable distance.
All of a sudden she took a turn, and there was a fox cub under a tree, waiting for its mom. It squealed delightedly at seeing its mom and the food, and set to devouring it immediately. Soon two other cubs showed up, and sit nothing remained of the rat, they found their mom and started suckling. We had discovered another fox den!
Since this den was nearer to the parking lot, and a bit more ideal for photography, we often went back in the mornings and evenings. As the cubs started growing, they strayed further and further from the den, allowing for some superb circumstances for photography. Such wonderful sightings are truly satisfying. But not only that. Each time we would leave with renewed energy, enough to continue our daily responsibilities, feeling relaxed.

Mother caught a rat

Curious fox cub

Playing fox cubs