Baby Red Foxes at Springbrook

 The baby Red Foxes at Springbrook Nature Center are growing fast.  These pictures from 6 AM on April 23rd show more color and a longer muzzel.  Most of the bluish cast to the eyes is also gone.

There seem to be only two kits, and they dissappear well before the sun comes up.  But early in the dawn light they silently play with mock attacks on each other, and find bits of old animal skin and fiercely shake it, pounce on it and find tiny bits of food to pull off for a snack. 

I've seen one of the adults drop off a freshly killed muskrat and a small rabbit.  But the sound of the shutter makes the adults run off with a warning bark to the kits, who quickly dive into the den.

This little kit saw something alarming in the sky that I could not see from my blind, and an instant later the little fox had bolted into the burrow entrance behind it.

At this age these little foxes are alert and curious.  The other kit dissappeared at the click of the camera shutter, but this one was curious to know where the sound was coming from and walked toward the sound.  The top picture was taken when it had reached its closest point, about 30 feet away. 

It was dark enough that I had to take these pictures with an ISO of 2000, a shutter speed of 40th/sec,  and lighten them in photoshop to make the pictures look ok here.