Here we are, Bar­bara and I, mind­ing our own busi­ness doing our morn­ing proof­ing on our respec­tive lap­tops at 7:30a, drink­ing our respec­tive caf­feine for­mats. She looks up, cries (shrieks?) “Oh my GOD!” and vaults from the chair. “What­what­what?” cries me, and leaps up after, think­ing (I swear) that we have an eagle or a crane or some­thing sit­ting in our yard, or maybe she sees a mete­orite or some­thing bad com­ing From the Skies.

Aha. Trot­ting around in the lawn: a red fox.

I grab the cam­era. See? Here are the poorly-​​focused, unstead­ied cryp­to­zo­o­log­i­cal proof I produced:

Now, as con­text: we live in a lit­tle sub­ur­ban neigh­bor­hood in Ann Arbor, with 1960s-​​era streets and nearby creeks and streams that have been buried in tun­nels beneath roads for 80 years (no, really). But when the fox has gone on its chase, and I look it up in the best place I can to ver­ify the pos­si­bil­ity, I find that yes indeedy, oth­ers here in town are report­ing they’re here.

Now, it’s almost July today. And this was a mature adult, maybe 15–18 inches at the shoul­der. Put­ter­ing around in our over­grown flower beds like it was quite famil­iar with the places the lit­tle tasty crit­ters hang out, so I sus­pect it’s been here before. And there are plenty of places nearby where a fam­ily could hide a quiet den: rail­road tracks, over­grown yards (not least our postage stamp, but doubt­ful that we host them), a park or two, even the lit­tle mys­te­ri­ous Nature Cen­ter a few blocks from the house. And we have plenty of chip­munks (last year, an amaz­ing and note­wor­thy sur­plus, I am reminded) and cats and young fledg­ling birds to munch. So well-​​fed foxes, methinks.

Thus we have what I read as our first real car­ni­vores, moved back in after many years away. Can’t count the damned cats; they’re just domes­ti­cated pests that occa­sion­ally eat the birds, as far as I’m con­cerned. [Insert an image of me see­ing a cat in the back yard, lurk­ing around the bird­feeder farm we’ve planted, and me dili­gently trudg­ing out to the hose reel, turn­ing the water on full-​​blast, and hos­ing said inter­loper cat down. “Get off my lawn, you god­damned cats! Bah.” Cue Scooby-​​Doo music.]

So now we have a fox. And where one has one fox, I expect one has sev­eral. As far as I’m con­cerned, a won­der. I’ve watched the crows die, help­less. And seen the innu­mer­able wood­peck­ers on the gasp­ing car­cass of the ash trees, gorg­ing on emerg­ing Emer­ald Ash Bor­ers. We have a local Sharp-​​shinned Hawk, and a fam­ily of bats. And a boun­ti­ful crop of Asian Tiger mos­qui­toes that bite fiercely dur­ing the day­light. And a burly-​​looking wood­chuck that trun­dles along in the under­brush now and then. And skunks! More than you can count.

A sur­pris­ingly boun­ti­ful urban ecosys­tem, frankly. I will now watch for the fox.

Though I’m still hold­ing out for cougars.