No it is not the title of a great new folk ballad. But the story of how I met a fox among these windmills. I still don't know if the detour was pointless but I am glad I took it. The advantage was that it included a village, with a hostal, some 4km before my final destination, just in case the weather changed for the worse or anything unexpected happened. The disadvantage was that it meant climbing over a steep and very high hill. So high in fact that it was the site of about 40 wind-turbines. Anyway, where there's a hill there's a way! In training we were allowed to walk down hills but we always had to run up them. I don't know if it was the extremely strong wind blowing towards me, or the loud machine noise of the blades and turbines but a fox almost walked into my legs! It was a magnificent Dog Fox with all the colours of Red, Black and White clear and rich. I would have had time to photograph him but simply didn't believe that he would have kept coming towards me. He was within 2m before he reacted and then he was off at speed, in a zig zag, with those apparently "too short for their body" legs that foxes have. A feature of living in tunnels I suppose. Spanish has a much easier way to indicate gender, and fox is the Spanish word we all know, it is Zorro with the female being Zorra. English complicates the issue by calling the male a Dog Fox and the female a Vixen. Yes, Spanish people you have my sympathy when you learn a language as crazy as English. This was the second time I have met a fox at such close quarters and the first time it was a Vixen. We both came round a corner, on a track, by a river, in Andalucia. It was almost dark, I was late and she was heavily pregnant, in fact I think she was so pregnant that she was about to deliver and was looking for a safe place to do so. She looked at me, eyes full of distress and disbelief that I could be there at all. I assessed the situation and thought the best thing would be to pretend that she was not there at all, so I looked one way, she caught on and looked the other. We passed within a metre of each other, no hurry, no panic and to the best of my knowledge, neither of us looked back.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
FOX AMONG THE WINDMILLS
No it is not the title of a great new folk ballad. But the story of how I met a fox among these windmills. I still don't know if the detour was pointless but I am glad I took it. The advantage was that it included a village, with a hostal, some 4km before my final destination, just in case the weather changed for the worse or anything unexpected happened. The disadvantage was that it meant climbing over a steep and very high hill. So high in fact that it was the site of about 40 wind-turbines. Anyway, where there's a hill there's a way! In training we were allowed to walk down hills but we always had to run up them. I don't know if it was the extremely strong wind blowing towards me, or the loud machine noise of the blades and turbines but a fox almost walked into my legs! It was a magnificent Dog Fox with all the colours of Red, Black and White clear and rich. I would have had time to photograph him but simply didn't believe that he would have kept coming towards me. He was within 2m before he reacted and then he was off at speed, in a zig zag, with those apparently "too short for their body" legs that foxes have. A feature of living in tunnels I suppose. Spanish has a much easier way to indicate gender, and fox is the Spanish word we all know, it is Zorro with the female being Zorra. English complicates the issue by calling the male a Dog Fox and the female a Vixen. Yes, Spanish people you have my sympathy when you learn a language as crazy as English. This was the second time I have met a fox at such close quarters and the first time it was a Vixen. We both came round a corner, on a track, by a river, in Andalucia. It was almost dark, I was late and she was heavily pregnant, in fact I think she was so pregnant that she was about to deliver and was looking for a safe place to do so. She looked at me, eyes full of distress and disbelief that I could be there at all. I assessed the situation and thought the best thing would be to pretend that she was not there at all, so I looked one way, she caught on and looked the other. We passed within a metre of each other, no hurry, no panic and to the best of my knowledge, neither of us looked back.
