Taexalia

wild.life

Foxes Full Of Beans

This morning brought another snowstorm and with it the best ever garden fox watching extravaganza. Our vixen was full of high jinx tiddling about in the snow, burying scavenged bread under the snow and flinging something into the air and playing with it. She was disturbed a few times by an inconsiderate human who kept opening the window to see better... pfffft! Our vixen also involved herself in a game of tag with a crow and two magpies which she lost gracefully. A little while later her ... read more

There’s snow business like fox business…

Almost a year ago I found myself a voyuer at midday for around half an hour as our resident fox pair enjoyed the Quickening. Further research suggests they had actually gotten themselves stuck. Bless. Today I'm trying to knuckle down and do some book-keeping when I hear Crow carking and sounding a bit enraged. I look outside and see both foxes flirting and chasing each other across the snow. The pair of crows are flitting about keeping a close eye on proceedings and the foxies are looking up ... read more

Arctic Vixen

Last night the snow was still falling and the blanket of white was almost intact, blurring the boundaries and creating an erie light. This morning the world of humans has taken over and where the road and pavement were one there is clear tarmac and orange stripes of salty sand. The cars, you see, must go on. The gardens tell more interesting tales as the criss-cross of animal tracks bely the journeys of the night. In the dim morning light under clouds laden with more snowfall to come ... read more

Welcome Distraction

Packing orders this afternoon and I was distracted by a flash of red outside... our resident pair of foxes were slinking around marking territory and chasing each other. Such is their hearing that they reacted to the click of my camera one floor up behind double glazing... but they did not see me ;-)

More foxes in my garden

My camera doesn’t have night fox vision…

...but here is some blurry evidence of the foxies in the garden tonight ~There were three different ones scurrying about and one of them even sat down and looked up at me. It was much darker and these images are brought to you by the wonders of photo editing software... I want a fancier camera with more bells and whistles!

More foxes in my garden

Crow King

...Crow is raucous and I look up to see what the fuss is about today. A black shape slinks off the fence and under the Sparrow Bush sending the sparrows into a panic. Crow and Magpie dance up onto Skeleton Tree and Crow continues to scream.Cat appears from the nettle bed and walks across the lawn. Crow is relentless and flies down to stalk her. Cat seems unimpressed but unwilling to take on Crow and they test their boundaries for several moments. The energy is tense and Birds and Squirrel ... read more

Glimpsing Spring

I've covered a fare bit of ground over the past week really. My folks took us over to Lomond Shores which is basically a shopping centre at one end of Loch Lomond. It wasn't as awful as it might sound, but since I'm not a stuff buying addict I was more interested in the scenery. I'm also still trying to forget the cloying stench of perfume that permeated the air - I hate perfume and can't see the attraction of a) perfume shops and b) walking around with a chemical cloud for an aura. We ... read more

Blooming Colour

The sunshine was hot and the colours are everywhere. Each year this tree just explodes with blossoms and I love the colour, especially the way it contrasts against today's blue sky. I wonder if I can find yarn in those shades...In Holyrood Park there was much colour to be found and we walked up to Dunsapie Loch, around Dunsapie Crag and then meandered our way down through the woods...My eye was caught by the colour and texture of these larch leaves. It's good to see the larch trees going green ... read more

When you feel down, go up

I awoke this morning feeling depressed and harbouring a sense of dread that today will resemble yesterday. The only positive thing about my waking was that I awoke by myself without any outside influences. I lay there dreading the idea of trying to write, or think, or paint, or do anything creative and being repeatedly disturbed by unpredictable, unwelcome interruptions.It is not good or healthy to wake up feeling like that, it doesn't exactly move the day forward, so just for today I put my ... read more

Windswept and Interesting

Rainbow over the ForthI have the beginnings of a cold coming on and I'm also pre-menstrual, so you might want to take a step back. However, I need to be congratulated because instead of sitting inside feeling miserable, I motivated myself to take advantage of the sunshine and get all breathless in Holyrood Park. Of course by the time I got myself organised and out the door (and forgot my flask of water and things I was going to post), the clouds had begun to congregate. Still, I was thankful ... read more

Frisky Fox Day

[caption id="attachment_532" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) mating"][/caption] Life has been somewhat less colourful since the foxes raised their cubs and moved on last year. Although I know the foxes remain in the neighbourhood, they just haven't been using the gardens viewed from my window very often. The last few nights, however, have been punctuated with eerie barking and calls and I have been hoping what I was hearing was the sounds of a fox calling for ... read more

City Life

[caption id="attachment_446" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Arthur's Seat"][/caption]It never ceases to tickle me that I can look at this standing in the middle of a city :) and this week @ and I have been taking advantage of the unseasonal weather and wandering about in the wilds of Edinburgh....Our wee loch in the park looks great in the low slung sunshine (as long as you can ignore the joyful things that most local residents seem comfortable dumping... shopping trolleys, dog poo, ... read more

Not Hovering

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Grey Heron"][/caption] The best days are sometimes the ones that don't resemble the plan at all... The plan was to lend our support to the two week trial of a new Forth crossing - taking the hovercraft from Portobello to Kirkcaldy and back again. Fortunately demand was so high that our only option was to stand in a queue for 2-3 hours. I say fortunately because this is only a two week trial to see if the venture is viable, and I ... read more