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June 07, 2001 - Focusing on foxes and flowers6A • The Suffolk Times • June 7, 2001 Focusing on foxes, and flowers Suffolk Times photo by Paul Stoutenburgh By now young foxes are well on their way to becoming adults. Their main diet Is mice. The red fox Is truly part of our wildlife heritavre_ l'IM MOREY, A STUDENT OF MINE from many years ago, called me the other day about seeing some foxes in East Marion. He explained to me where he had seen them and I remembered the area well. He said he had seen one mmm fox when he first FOCUS walked into the woods and then ON he saw another NATURE one. He felt they were almost the by Paul size of adults. Stoutenburgh 1 nat s about the size this year's foxes would be now. It's now they start to venture far- ther and farther away from their den. He thought I might be interested in getting a picture of them. It wasn't long before Barbara and I gathered our binoculars and cameras and were headed for East Marion. We immediately noticed all the locust trees laden with their white blossoms as we pulled out of our dri- veway and drove up the lane. It almost seemed as if the heavy rains had given them an extra boost, as their limbs literally drooped with blos- soms. Our locust is a scrub tree that is found in forgotten fields, along the roadsides and just about any place it can get a foothold. The wood is very dense and can stand in the ground without rotting and so we find locust was used in the old days as foundation posts to put bungalows on and hold up timbers under the buildings. These Posts of locust would outlast all other woods and not rot. Some locust posts are used for bulkheading. The posts will last as long as the bulkhead will stand. As we pulled onto the Main Road we noticed the yellow flower called king devil blossoming along the edge of the road. This is an immigrant from Europe that has become common throughout out area, sort of like the lovely wild daisy. They probably came over as seeds in shipments of grain and took a liking to our soils. Now we have them as wildflowers. We reached our destination in East Marion, and after tucking our jeans into our socks so that we wouldn't invite any ticks to crawl up our legs, we headed into the woods to see if we could find the elusive little foxes. The first part of our walk was along a wooded road that gave us a chance to review some of the wildflowers that were in bloom. We could see the blackberry blossoms on the bushes on either side of us. Their white petals were just starting to fall. Then there were the mullein plants with their large, velvety, gray -green leaves. Later they will have tall stalks on which small yellow flowers will blossom, first at the bottom and then the dainty flowers will work their way up to the top. This is the kind of plant that, if taken early enough, can make a nice addition to your garden. The East Marion woods north of the highway is one of the Qreat areas to see mountain laurel. In some places it dominates the understory. It was good to see it in such abundance, for the meager little bushes that I have at home have been destroyed by deer browse. There is nothing left but leaf- less bushes. Here in the woods in East Marion there is so much growth that the deer seem to have left the moun- tain laurels alone. The woods were alive with bird songs. The crested fly- catcher, with its raspy ' call, probably has its nest in an opening in some tree. The cheery but hid- den bobwhite called as ;30M @h01 we walked along. In the open areas a mocking- bird was claiming its territory and singing its aria. Have you ever heard the mockingbird really sing its full repertoire? We also had the catbird scolding us as we walked along and I' sure I heard a redstart, one of the few warblers that nests in our area. No pictures this time Try as we would we couldn't find any of the boxes that Tim had called about. It might have been the off -road vehicles that had scared them away. Their tire tracks were everywhere. Finally we had to give up and head back home without even a glimpse of a fox, but it did bring back memories of other times when I had been more fortunate to find them and photo- graph them. Once was out at the Terry farm in Orient. (I was teaching at Greenport School at the time and Barbara was working at The Suffolk Times in Greenport.) We couldn't pass up a chance to see and photo- graph a den of foxes the Terrys had called about. So I called Barbara up a noontime and we headed out to Orient. We were lucky — not only did we see the family but we pho- tographed it as well. Once in Cutchogue I • photographed a single young outside its den ong the railroad rac s. At both these locations I pho- tographed from the car. At that time we had a Volkswagen Beetle that would go almost anywhere. So with- out getting out of the car I was able to drive fairly close to the den and wait a few minutes until the young gained enough confidence that nothing was wrong. Then slowly they would ven- ture out and check me out. All the while my heart pounded as I busily clicked away with my camera. Then, as they realized nothing was going to happen, they settled down and one actually curled up and went to sleep while I was still there. Foxes are much like coyotes; they seem to be able to live among people and, try as man will to eliminate them, they somehow survive. At one time hunters thought foxes took their pheasants and rabbits and other game. Since then studies have found that 90% of the fox's diet is made up of voles, mice and other rodents and the few pheasants and rabbits they do take are of insignificant numbers. Loss of habitat is one of the main reasons we don't have as much wildlife as we used to. I hope the old idea that "the only good fox is a dead fox" slips away into obscurity, for we have so few remnants of true wildlife and Mr. Fox is truly part of our wildlife heritaee.