When I looked out the window first thing this morning I saw what appeared to be a fox asleep on the lawn. I fetched my binoculars and very gingerly opened the window. It looked very peaceful and fast asleep. But there was no movement at all, it was dreadfully still and, it began to dawn on me, it was quite probably dead.
When I went out to see her (she was a beautiful little vixen with a magnificent grey brown brush) she had obviously just curled up, gone to sleep and died on our lawn. She had been badly injured and presumably had wanted to find somewhere safe to rest. Who knows what had happened to her. Perhaps she had been hit by a car or perhaps she had been gored by a sanglier. It's about now that wild boar are having their young and a mother would not take kindly to an inquisitive fox if she had piglets about. Although we have not yet seen a wild boar around here there is plenty of evidence of their foraging marks in the field and the woods.
It was horrible to think of this poor beautiful vixen dying of her catastrophic wounds outside our bedroom window while we slept warm and safe just a few metres away. In a way it was good to think that she felt safe where she was, sheltered from the wind by our oversized and much despised lelandii hedge. I wondered if foxes had a particular place where they went to die, like elephants are supposed to. Could it be that our front lawn is just such a place. I hope not, but in a way it would be rather wonderful if it was.
I took the little fox across the field and deep into the woods where I found a very quiet and remote sunlit glade where I laid her to rest. A mythical little corner of the world where foxes can return to die in peace.
