Just a Neat Moment in My Day...

I'm back at work this week teaching geology, and after an unexpectedly busy summer organizing trips, I needed the rest! Being back on campus also allowed me to reacquaint myself with the campus "mini-wilderness", a drainage basin that has two or three acres of oak woodland and mature Eucalyptus trees. The area is occasionally used to graze sheep, but because it is fenced off, it protects an unusually diverse little ecosystem. Since I started observing bird species there last November, I have documented at least thirty-five species either living there, or passing through. There are no doubt more to be discovered.

For the last year I've been hearing rumors that a fox, or a fox family lived in the mini-wilderness, but for all my searching, I've never seen it. I was last told about it this very afternoon at our geology club meeting ("Have you seen the fox yet??"). So I was on a break and walking around the pond when I saw a furry creature walking through the underbrush. I'd seen one of the feral cats there just two days prior, so I figured it was the cat again...but it seemed bigger somehow. I continued walking, and in the finest tradition of all suspense movies, I felt like something was looking at me. I turned around and there it was!

It stared at me for a few moments, long enough for me to snap a few pictures, and then it loped off into the underbrush. My day had been fine enough, but it had just become a lot nicer.