Praise Song for the Red Fox, Screaming in the Driveway

The red fox sits in my neighbor’s driveway in plain view of the air conditioner repairman, who makes a video from the window of his van. Every time the fox opens his mouth, an unearthly scream erupts. Scream after scream after scream. If you heard this sound at night, never having heard a fox scream before, you would swear a woman was being murdered in the woods.

The fox is not interested in the repairman. He is screaming at a cat, who is also sitting in the driveway. My neighbor has a tender heart for animals. She knows the fox has a mate and kits in the woods behind her house, in uncomfortable proximity to her chicken coop, but she does not try to evict them. She reinforces the coop instead.

I hear the story of the fox screaming in my neighbor’s driveway, and I think about the red-tailed hawk who once swooped down to get a better look at my baby in the grass. I think of the barred owl who did the same thing when Rascal was snuffling in the leaves. I think about the time someone walked into a bathroom at the downtown convention center and found a coyote sitting in the corner. Is it thrilling to know these predators are among us? Or is it heartbreaking to understand how thoroughly we have colonized their world? To know they have no choice but to make do with whatever vestiges of wildness we leave them?