Readers’ wildlife photos

May 25, 2024 • 8:15 am

We’re running out of photos again, so I plead with and importune you to send in your good wildlife photos.

We have just a few photos today, and the first batch, from reader Steve Pollard, is salacious: LOCKED FOXES. As always, the contributor’s captions are indented and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

I attach three photos taken a couple of months ago of a pair of locked American Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes fulva) in our garden. They were taken with a phone camera at extreme range, so they are not the greatest, but it’s not something I’ve seen before.
From the magazine Wildlife Online:”Copulation lasts only a few seconds and, following ejaculation, the pair are locked together—a copulatory lock—for up to 90 minutes, owing to contraction of the vixen’s vagina and the swelling of the bulbus glandis tissue at the tip of the dog fox’s baculum”.
As the photos indicate, the lock can result in some awkward positions! In this case, the vixen tried several times to get free, twisting and even biting at the dog. The lock lasted for over 20 minutes. The cub from a previous engagement took quite an interest in proceedings.

From Florian Maderspacher, a marsh fritillary (Euphydryas aurinia), which, he says, “goes by the much nicer German name of Skabiosen-Scheckenfalter“.

From Lee Jussim.

Northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris)  in California:

American robin‘s eggs (Turdus migratorius), New Jersey

Hatched eggs:

Swans and babies (Cygnus sp., also New Jersey):

13 thoughts on “Readers’ wildlife photos”

  1. Foxcault and Marcuse’s Queer Planet —”sexuality — beyond the animal world“

    1. The cub is uncertain, but I don’t think there’s much empirical doubt about the sexualities involved in the lock-in (which is a British joke). Though which one is which is, uh, harder to be sure.

      1. FYI I wrote that – channeling my inner Titania McGrath – based on this :

        “All human needs, including sexuality, lie beyond the animal world.”

        Herbert Marcuse
        The End of Utopia
        1967

        … I mean, I had to go check if that was real just now, and it is.

        This happens all the time with quotes I find – I can’t believe it, and have to check again.

  4. One minor point: I live in the UK, so those foxes would have been European Red Foxes, which I think are Vulpes vulpes crucigera (happy to be corrected by someone who knows what they are talking about).

    The family frequently visit our garden. The cub, who has grown a bit, turns up by himself these days. There is also a larger and, I presume, older dog, who has a pronounced limp and apparently no partner.

  5. The “locked” foxes look (not only goofy, but also) vulnerable to predation. I wonder what natural selection has in “mind” here.

    1. Vulnerable to predation … by whom?
      In the UK, pretty much only humans. In the foxes’ wider range, potentially bears, … wolves?
      But, in practice, in the wild, wouldn’t they most likely find somewhere safe, enclosed, free from overlooking predators … in fact, pretty much how the housing advertisers project the concept of “back garden”.
      I bet Steve Pollard has a den very close to his garden, since at least the vixen seems to consider this a pretty safe space. But the dogs wander more, don’t they?

      1. I don’t know the answer to your last question, but members of this family turn up pretty often, so I’m sure there must be at least one den (probably more than one) nearby. We regularly see foxes not just in the garden, but casually crossing the roads. They are becoming increasingly urbanised and unafraid of people.

        Ever since we moved here about 28 years ago, there has been a track running across our ‘lawn’ (about 70% moss, if truth be told), through holes in the hedges on each side. This was made, and is maintained, by badgers, which we have seen now and again, but is also used by other animals, including foxes, hedgehogs and stoats. There are at least two badger setts not far away. Not bad for a built-up area in SE England.

  6. When did you last go price-shopping for a “trail cam”? It sounds like your garden is screaming for one.
    Or considering that it’s right by your house, if your camera can take a charging plug and a fat memory card, setting it up on a good line of sight and take photos of the path every few seconds would probably yield some good stuff.

    1. Ha, yes, I keep meaning to get one. Spurred on by your urging, I might actually get round to it before too long!

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