Forest fox

Today Em and I went on a girl-date to the Planetarium and the SA Museum. What nerds. Good fun tho.

We wandered in on the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2011 exhibition, which was insanely amazing. Everyone should see it! Go. Now.

Came across this photo by Klaus Echle...so so stunning.

(Click on it to make it bigger)

Klaus Echle from Germany was highly commended in the Animals in their Environment category for this image. While exploring the Black Forest near his home in Freiburg, he came across this vixen. Klaus made a point of going to this part of the wood on wet or misty days. "The light is so special then," he explained.

On trying new things

This is my favourite Youtube video of all time.

Vulpes vulpes

I like them, I do.

I have a serious crush on anything involving foxes at the moment. Maybe its because The Fantastic Mr Fox is the best movie ever made (yes), because it was my first real book, because of Farthing Wood, because they were my grandma's favourite, because they're redheads too (us redheads love company), or because the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. They're my totem animal. Whatever that means.

How can a fox ever be happy without a chicken in its teeth?

I watched Fantastic Mr Fox this week. It was the first proper book I ever learnt to read, so I was expecting to be let down by the movie. But its beautiful and heart-warming and quirky and beautiful. Go watch.

"They say all foxes are slightly allergic to linoleum, but it's cool to the paw - try it. 
They say my tail needs to be dry cleaned twice a month, but now it's fully detachable - see? 
They say our tree may never grow back, but one day, something will. 
Yes, these crackles are made of synthetic goose and these giblets come from artificial squab and even these apples look fake - but at least they've got stars on them.
 I guess my point is, we'll eat tonight, and we'll eat together. And even in this not particularly flattering light, you are without a doubt the five and a half most wonderful wild animals I've ever met in my life. 
So let's raise our boxes - to our survival."

"Ash, I know what it's like to feel...different."

"I'm not different, am I?"

"We all are...

But there's something kind of fantastic

about that, isn't there?"


xx

Magic.

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ." -The Little Prince