After a bit of “Is it on or is it off” last week, JP and I eventually found ourselves travelling towards an unlikely location (for us) to meet up with a TV production company who had been commissioned by Channel Four to make a programme.
Perhaps Hampstead isn’t too unlikely considering the programme (or at least a third of it) is going to be about an urban fox “problem”. We were to survey the area, and then look at three gardens for signs of fox.
The crew followed us around all afternoon as we found and described fox hairs, scat, tracks and our suppositions as to why the foxes were entering into each garden.
As Hampstead Heath wasn’t too far away, it was natural to assume they were coming in from there, but there was certainly a resident community of a number of fox families who had made their home in the locality. Just how many was very difficult to speculate upon without doing a larger survey. Above shows signs of a fox climbing out of a garden.
At the request of the crew, we set hired camera traps in each garden for later retrieval, and hopefully capture some footage of fox activity.
As we surveyed one garden, we tracked the fox to the bottom of the garden and through a narrow gap. As JP peeked though the gap into next door’s garden, he spooked the fox laying up under a conifer, which ran off into what we had identified as a long, narrow transit corridor between two facing back gardens. Unfortunately the camera crew were a little slow to catch the live action.
We were very impressed that the producer had switched from an earlier stance of supporting the eradication of the fox through trapping and shooting, to our reasoning that this would only allow another fox to occupy the displaced fox’s vacant territory.
Later in the evening, we had to describe our findings to the occupiers of the property and suggest ways to reduce their presence. After describing this to one couple, they changed their own quite hard-line opinion about foxes and will be willing to try out our suggestions.
To another lady I described exactly how and why I thought a certain route was being used and the reasoning for the fox coming into her garden. She confirmed exactly what I had said, describing the fox routinely jumping onto a low wall surrounding a water feature for a drink. Her observations also confirmed what I thought was a mouse that appeared in one corner of the garden to nibble on some windfall fruit.
After a tiring but satisfying day, we made our way back to Essex. I’m not sure when the programme will be aired; but I’ll be sure to let everyone know. Err…I hope they caught our best side!
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