We have Foxes that have young very close to us and come to our garden each night as we leave some food out for them. Unfortunately, we've not seen the Male for a few weeks, but this is timed with the fact that the Vixen now visits more often as she's now leaving the young alone, but clearly still lactating. We live in hope that the Male is fine and will show up one day soon.
I leave a Bushnell NatureView Cam out every night to capture night video of them, this is how I know who is coming. Soon we hope to have the little ones visiting once they are old enough.
So I decided to try and photograph the Vixen. I did a test a few days ago where I would leave our garden floodlights on to see if she would still come and she did. So, I setup a hide in the back of my Land Rover, left the food out and kept the floodlights on and sat a waited. It was about 30 minutes before she showed up.
Even with the lights on, it's very dark, so was shooting at ISO3200 and f/2.8, I dialled in -.7ev to bump the shutter speed up but still only managed 1/20sec, so had to pan around the garden until she stood still long enough to get a shot. I wrapped a towel around the camera body and also used Quiet Mode just to try and avoid any shutter noise spooking her.
