Last summer, amateur photographers Peter Lewis and Mark Strachan were out taking pictures on the Aberdeenshire coast at Peterhead when they spotted a litter of three fox cubs.
Initially they didn’t think too much of it, but after returning for the next three weeks – and at one point finding a dead female fox who they presumed to be their mother on a nearby road – they came to understand that the babies were fending for themselves.
Peter, 55 and Mark, 50, set about looking after the cubs but soon enough two moved on, and the friends invested all of their efforts into keeping the one that remained, who they named Black Paws, alive and well.
On a regular basis, they’d go out visiting Black Paws, feeding her and even running through the fields with pieces of meat on a string to help hone her hunting skills.
It got to the point that they felt like they were her foster parents, and struck up a strong bond with the growing vixen.
The friends have also managed to keep a watchful eye over the fox using night trail cameras, and have now documented their extraordinary relationship with stunning pictures of the vixen playing, eating and happily posing for photographs.
In some of the pictures, she even looks like she’s smiling.
Peter, a technician for an oil company, said: ‘Running through the field with a bit of chicken on a string as she chased after the bait was, well, just out of this world.
‘We turned up and used our way of letting her know we were there and she was out like a dog that had been waiting for its master all day.
‘We became her foster parents. There was one month I had to rely on Mark to feed her as holidays in the highlands stopped me from getting out seeing her.
‘When I saw her again I was not let down as the cub that once looked so vulnerable was blossoming into a very beautiful vixen and she hadn’t forgotten me.
‘She was bolder than ever coming right up and sat yards from me.
‘This is a wild Fox and it amazes me as to how much this she let us into her life, maybe she was relying on us to help her into adulthood.’
It’s not the end of the journey for the ‘foster parents’ and Black Paws, and Peter and Mark are planning more trips when the weather gets warmer to get pictures of her.
Although she’s growing into a healthy adult vixen, we’re sure she’ll still remember their kindness, and be happy to play about with them again.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/01/incredible-pictures-orphaned-fox-raised-two-scottish-photographers-12164645/
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