Walking in the middle of one of the most populous places in the world with more than 8.9 million people nearby, I didn’t expect to come face to face with a fox. Three of them, actually.
It happened during a birding trip in London’s Hyde Park on the last morning of our European vacation. I turned a corner on one of the paths and noticed a bit of movement over to my left. There was a red fox, just standing there looking at me.
There was a little metal fence separating us — about a meter tall — and the fox was about 15-20 feet away from me. After grabbing my camera and clicking away, the fox hung around for about a minute and then disappeared into a wooded area. I had just lowered my camera when another one appeared and quickly followed the first one. Then a third one walked out, briefly looking back at me before it too headed off into the woods (at least giving me time to snap a couple of pictures).
In doing some research about the Hyde Park foxes, I believe I saw them in an area called The Dell. It’s a very lush spot with lots of trees and plants, fenced off to keep dogs and people from intruding there. Apparently, it makes and ideal home for foxes.
Hyde Park is London’s largest park, about 340 acres in size. Turns out foxes are found there quite often, and they are considered nuisance animals by park staff. According to some online posts, rangers will remove the foxes but new ones will immediately appear to take over the territory.
I guess they are sort of the British version of coyotes here in the states, but cuter. There may be more than 10,000 foxes in London, one report says. An L.A. Times story says they started showing up in the city in the 1930s as London grew and encroached on their territories.
It wasn’t until the plane ride home that I began to wonder if I had been in any sort of danger being that close to the foxes. After checking online, I believe the answer is no. I read that if I did feel threatened, I should have yelled at them to scare them away. But these foxes seemed scared enough of me and made their quick exit.
Still, I was happy for our short interaction, and it made for a fun away to end our vacation.
