I've spent a lot of time, over the past six years, hiking and photographing one, particular regional park. I hike others, but this one is so close, and the terrain is so interesting that I tend to concentrate on this park. I'm always trying to find wildlife, and I'm often successful, but I can also go weeks, or even a couple of months, without seeing anything.

Although I've encountered foxes in many places, until a couple of days ago, I had never seen one in this park. Well, I thought I saw one, once, but the critter zipped in front of me, so quickly, through the tall, dry grass, that I was unable to make a confirmed sighting. An unconfirmed sighting is not a sighting, at all. But, a couple of days ago, I finally collected my first fox, in that park. (And not a moment too soon. At the end of November, we are moving out of state.)

There was something a little different about that day. Normally, I wear a backpack, with my camera/big lens situated on my backpack shoulder strap. I screwed up, that day, and did not have the hub mounted to the camera. That camera with the big lens is too heavy to wear around my neck, while climbing hills, so I had to carry it in my pack. The problem is that, when I meet up with wildlife, I have to get that camera ready, quickly, or I miss the opportunity. It takes some soothing, critter whispering to get the animal to stay put while I extract my camera.

Not too long into the hike, I encountered a gray fox. It was about ten yards off the trail, looking right at me. I did my level best critter whispering, to calm the little guy while I pulled out my camera. Unexpectedly, it worked! The fox stayed put while I took several shots. I was even able to move around, and change angles. That is when I started to suspect that my critter whispering, legendary though it may be, was not the only reason the fox was staying put. I suspected it might be injured. I moved ever so slightly closer, to see if I could get the fox to move. It did move, and, sure enough, it was favoring its left, hind leg.

The fox could still move, though, and if it were really afraid, it could easily have taken off into the brush. It didn't run away. I stuck around, and posed. The fox seemed to be mostly at ease with my presence. It actually let me get close enough to allow me to compress my 100-400mm lens back to about 250mm, to get the entire animal in the frame.

Of course, I always like to get the full animal in frame, but when I can get this close to my subject, I also like to get a head shot. The fox obliged me.

There actually was an interesting photographic challenge, in this episode. The fox was side lit. The sun was pretty strong on my left. Of course, that meant that the right side of the fox's face was going to be darker. That wasn't the real challenge, though. The real challenge was what the bright side lighting was doing to the fox's body fur, on my left side. The gray and white fur was so illuminated that it actually appeared as though a very unnatural halo was emanating from the fox. Even with a raw file, completely untouched, the fox appeared to have been inserted into the photograph by a particularly inept Photoshop newbie. That is why I moved around, to get a better angle. (I tossed those "halo" shots. They just didn't look natural, though they were.)

So, here's my little, injured friend.