Foxes

Last night, both husband and lodger were awakened by a loud bark. A fox must have been in our back garden to wake them. I've heard and seen the foxes in the street; only a couple of weeks ago a couple of them stopped in the road to bark at each other one evening. 

Foxes look pretty. I don't mind them out in the country and they provide some value by keeping the rat population down. But I do wish there weren't foxes in Aylesbury town centre.  They're bold. Last summer I met one in our garden when I went down to open the hen run and found a fox sitting sunning itself a metre away. Foxes trot up the street, on the way into town, even at nine in the morning, only diverting if people get too close to them. They've taken a neighbour's pet rabbit and several of my hens. 

In January, two foxes jumped into our garden, snaffled two of my three hens, leaving the third, Custard, traumatised, sad and lonely. I suspect that a vixen was pregnant last summer and has raised cubs, and that's what's caused the extra movement and barking. Pests.