Black Fox

On the Greenbelt near my home are many red foxes, but also a few black foxes. The blacks are a color phase of the red fox species - You can tell because both the red and the blacks will have a white tip on their tails.

I spent months trying to get a good photo of the black foxes. The one I kept seeing seemed to be very shy. I would only get glimpses of him, usually running away.

One morning in February I found a red fox sitting on a little mound of snow on a north-facing ridge. I set up my tripod and took a few shots of him with my long telephoto lens. Then, behind the red fox, partially behind a chokecherry bush, I saw a dark figure - the black fox. I waited patiently for a few minutes. The black fox walked out from behind the bush, into an opening.

Although my equipment is old and my telephoto lens not of the highest quality, the photo I took showing the red fox lying on the ground and her black mate standing cautiously behind her, is one of my favorite pictures.

I talked to an elderly lady on the Green Belt who seems to know the most about all the individual foxes. She told me the old Black disappeared over the winter.

The last time I saw him was in October, 95. He was lying on a log beneath a Cottonwood that was in its fall foliage. As I topped the hill back to my house, I could still see the black fox on the log underneath the brilliant yellow tree. He was enjoying the warmth of the early morning sun.