Yesterday morning I just happened to be looking out into the woods past the creek and saw a fox walking (hmmm...do foxes really 'walk'?) or loping along, pausing quickly every now and then to sniff and then to lope on again. He was headed somewhere and wasn't going to be distracted for long.
Of course, within moments of seeing it, I rushed into the house and screeched to the children to hurry and come see the fox. I didn't want them to miss an opportunity to see such an elusive creature. They all ran to the back door to peer off the edge of the back steps into the woods and we all watched him for a few more moments before he disappeared.
Against a backdrop of leaves the same color as his fur, he was nearly invisible. He was a very small fox, probably a young one.
Later that day we gathered paper, colored pencils, and nature identification guides open to their red fox entries, and began to draw. Instead of drawing from memory (which we have done at times) each child had a nature guide with a photograph or drawing of a red fox to copy.
I opened our mangled copy of the Handbook of Nature Study and began to read Anna Botsford Comstock's engaging prose about the red fox aloud as the children sketched, "Do we not always, on a clear morning of winter, feel the thrill that must have something primitive in its quality at seeing certain tracks in the snow that somehow suggest wildness and freedom! Such is the track of the fox..." (251).
Had I thought of it, we could have trekked down to the creek to see if we could spot some fox tracks in the soft ground. That would have led us on a rabbit trail of discovery, for sure. I'd like to keep on hand whatever is needed to make casts of animal tracks. But for that day I was glad enough to have an opportunity present itself for a quick nature journal sketch, some read aloud, and some conversation about the red fox.
Comments