Red Fox Kit Panorama, Pennsylvania
Every April I look forward to finding and photographing Red Foxes. Fortunately, for the past two years a couple of photographer friends have been a huge help in showing me dens that they have found or have been told about. Somehow though, I never seem to get lucky when I visit them, and usually spend hours and hours waiting for some action.
Today, I made the drive to Pennsylvania horse country to photograph a couple of active fox dens that have been found in farm fields. One den had been highly successful for my friends Kim and Steve, and I met Steve there at 7AM hoping to see some kits. After a couple of hours, without a fox in sight, we headed over to a different farm and found another active den with younger kits. We drove up to the den and waited from within Steve’s truck, hoping to get a shot. Every once in a while a kit or two would pop out for several seconds, then shoot right back down the hole. At one point, we saw four kits, but they only came out of the den for a very short time. Eventually, we spotted the vixen, but she stayed a bit away from the den’s entrance, so around 4:30PM we left the den, to allow the vixen a chance to feed her kits in solitude. We returned to the first den, where Steve and Kim had gotten great shots of the kits, but they never came out. So after over 11 hours of waiting, I drove home, with less than 60 shots on my compact flash card.
Sometimes nature photography is like that. You can do everything right, and sometimes you just don’t come away with what you had been hoping for. I just as easily might have showed up at the den, stayed for just an hour, and gotten the shots I had dreamed of, if only the kits had come out to play.
I did get a couple of shots of the young kits at the second den we visited, but I was farther from the den than I would have liked with my 1D Mark II N, 300mm f/2.8, and 2x extender. So I took one of my better shots and cropped it down to a 1:3 pano, to eliminate much of the excess space from not being able to get close enough. Boy I wish I had Canon’s new 800mm f/5.6L IS lens!
Techs: Canon 1D Mark II N, 300mm f/2.8L IS USM, 2x Mark II Extender, 1/640s, f/6.3, ISO 640. To order this print, purchase stock rights, or view other photos I have for sale, please visit my website at www.karipost.com.
on April 27, 2008 at 5:11 pm
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This image is very Nice Kari. It sure would have been nice if you got closer for other shots. But this panoramic version works very well for me
on May 6, 2008 at 9:59 am
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Such a cute and clean shot. I know you’ve found that other den now, where you can get closer, but I still love the clean background this location offered. It would be an awesome bookmark.