A gray woodland ghost

By SANDY LONG

My colleague, Anne Willard, has lately been the lucky recipient of morning and evening visitations from a rather secretive forest phantom. A mulberry tree in Willard’s yard has attracted the attention of a gray fox, who sometimes brings a guest to dine on the mulberry’s abundant crop of thumb-sized fruits.

The beautiful gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) is characterized by a body covered mostly in grayish fur with reddish patches on the back of its head and neck. It is often confused with the red fox (Vulpes vulpes), but lacks the “black stockings” on the legs of the red fox. It can be easily distinguished by its black-tipped tail. The red’s is white-tipped.

The gray fox is omnivorous, consuming small mammals, fruits, birds, eggs, acorns and insects. It possesses the ability to climb trees to avoid leaving a scent trail and is a native species.

According to master tracker Paul Rezendes in “Tracking and the Art of Seeing,” “[s]ome say it was this ability to evade capture by hounds that inspired frustrated fox hunters to import the earthbound red fox from England.”

Weighing between seven and 14 pounds, the gray fox dens in hollow logs or beneath boulders, and sometimes utilizes ground burrows. It can run up to 28 miles an hour for short distances and has not adapted to people as well as the red fox.

Willard’s mulberry tree (morus rubra), the red variety, is also a native, unlike the imported white mulberry. Several deer have also found the mulberry fruits to their liking and have begun making regular stops to sample the tree’s nourishing bounty.