Vulpes Vulpes

Canid tracks in the snow. Red Fox. Vulpes vulpes. The most far ranging terrestrial carnivore on the planet. The other trickster canid of lore. The star of Aesop's Fables dances through the snow before my eyes. This one has a mate. I see their trails criss crossing and zig zagging through the woods. I follow them up a knoll to their mating place. I see where one has pounced on a gray squirrel and later where it has feasted, leaving behind a patch of blood in the packed snow, still melting from its body heat. Later, I find feathers and a wing pattern etched beside their trail. These foxes are not hungry. In my mind, I see their eyes with their pupils slit vertically like cats. They are watching me, I know. That is what foxes do. They know these woods far better than I, and they tell me so. The smell of their urine on the rock where all winter I have stopped to pull on my snowshoes says, "I am here. This is my territory!" Solitary, except for this season when they breed and raise young, these two are leading me on a lark. I fall through the ice and am shocked back to the reality of winter cold and survival. They weigh between six and twenty pounds. They are small and slither beneath the laurel that I must push and pull and drag myself through as twigs poke at me and branches seek to hold me back. These are their woods, not mine. I know I must head for home. My pants are wet. My boots filled with icy water, but the foxes lead me on. "Play with me, play with me," the tracks beg as they turn here and come back. burst forward, stop, change direction. This is not the direct registering, energy saving canid, that guidebooks portray. This is the creature of the woods that revels in the magic of scent, in the presence of a vixen, in the promise of a future. For today, for this time in winter when the light is stronger and life is beginning to sow its seeds again, these foxes announce, "We are alive!" And their yips fill the night.