The fox den where it all happened was made by a vixen three years ago. All three years since then I have been going there to get photos of the fox cubs, with varying success.
This summer I was not very successful. Each time, just as I was starting to make friends with the cubs, mother fox appeared and told her children, in fox-language, what a horrible being there was skulking around in the neighbourhood. After that it was best to leave quickly, otherwise mother fox would have dragged her cubs away from that den. I had already resigned to not getting any photos this year.
But one evening with nothing else to do I threw my photo kit into the car and just went for a drive. Out of old habit I also drove past that den. Having got there, something reddish glinted between the trees: the vixen was sitting at the mouth of the den.
I drove quietly on, stopped about 400 m away, got my camera ready and crept back on the other side of the road towards the den. When I got back to the den again, the vixen had disappeared and the cubs were not to be seen either. I crossed the road very quietly and crawled the last 50 meters to the den. As before, nobody was to be seen. But after some 15 minutes suddenly one of the cubs appeared at my side out of the grass, then bounded back in fright. After a few minutes however curiosity got the better of fear, and the cub returned to look me over again. Shortly after, two more cubs joined him. When they had examined me from all angles for some time, and convinced themselves that I was not particularly dangerous to them, they went on with their usual doings. So for about one hour I could observe them playing between themselves, pulling each others tails, crawling into the den and out again. I managed to get some 100 photos that night.







After sunset the cubs crept into the den for rest, and I left, quietly and happily. I had really set out without any expectations, and then had been allowed to observe, from only a few meters away, how the young of animals learn skills neccessary for life in playing, and I had even caught parts of it in photos