Meadow Mueller 07/2003 - 04/2015

Meadow Mueller 07/2003 - 04/2015

September 21, 2022

Great Find on the Road to Nowhere

Angie and I were away for a few days last week up in the Muskoka area.  It was nice to be north of the city and enjoy a little time out with nature.  At one point someone recommended to us a trail in the Waubaushene area called the Tay Shore Trail.  It was on our way home so we decided to check it out after we checked out of the lodge.  The person's directions were a bit vague so I entered the trail name into my Google maps on my mobile and away we went.  The drive seemed to be taking longer than what we thought and it also took us into a small subdivision, and from there to a dead end street that had no trail.  Ugh!

Angie said she saw a sign for the trail back near the highway but we stuck to the directions on the mobile, thinking we may end up at the other end.  Since that wasn't the case, we now turned around from this dead end "road to nowhere" and started making our way back.

We had barely done the u-turn and passed a couple houses when Angie blurts out that she saw a fox.  I stopped the car and then backed up.  Sure enough there was a fox up the driveway to the side of a house on a large lot.  It was just sitting there, looking at us, then to the ground, back at us, back to the ground and then it started to dig and pounce.

I grabbed my camera from the back seat.  Neither of us left the car and just watched him from the passenger window along the road.  He was probably 100 ft away but we could see him clearly as the area was not obstructed at all.

It was rather dark and raining.  I knew any photos that I got weren't going to be great quality but I wanted to capture some of the moment to share.

Acknowledgement.


Still looking at us.


Looking to the ground.


The hunt.


Pounce.  Bounce.


I wish I took some video of this as it was so interesting to watch.


The catch.


Don't be jealous!  Get your own rodent lunch.


Gone in 60 seconds.


A good stretch after all that.


One last look before he disappeared between the hedges further back.

We don't see foxes very often, especially hunting like this and it was unexpected (not on our radar), so this was a very cool encounter.  Staying well back and let nature happen naturally is how everyone should view wildlife.

What made this encounter even better is that after we drove away, we did find the trail near the highway.  Unfortunately the rain started coming down fairly hard and steady.  We braved the elements and still checked out a long stretch of the area.  We saw a couple crows, phoebes and some sparrows.  Rather uneventful I must say.  We were very thankful for our great find on the road to nowhere!

3 comments:

Jenn Jilks said...

We were driving around Muskoka and saw a red fox, too!
BTW It's frowned on to call it 'the Muskokas' as it was named after Chief Yellowhead in his language.
Take care.

Rob said...

That's great that you saw one as well Jenn. I corrected that "Muskokas" line. Thanks for that. I learned something new today.

Karen said...

Fate intervened so you could see that lovely fox.