By. Ran
Quarantine isolation has not been very productive and enjoyable for many of us. However, as it turns out, quarantine is great for the environment and all the animal species out there. They have been seen playing and roaming out and around!
And this fox was having a nap, casually, on a tree stump right outside Sara Ryan’s parents’ house. The couple had been performing social-distancing and they don’t have pets, so a sight like this really made their day. It was Sara’s dad who first spotted the fox fallen asleep on the remains of a tree the city removed last year. He did not hesitate to send his daughter updates ever since.
Eventually, Sara decided to share the beautiful pictures and uploaded them to Twitter. The shots immediately went viral, and they already have over 487K likes and 85K retweets.
Image Credit & More Info: Sara Ryan
#1. Here is the critter asleep on the tree stump.
#2. This is the post that went viral.
#3. “My parents had seen her in the yard several times this winter,” Sara told. “In fact, she found one of my sister’s dog’s toys in the yard and was moving it around in the snow a few nights. The tree got cut down in late October, but they never saw her up there until the day I posted the picture. They were really surprised to see her in the daylight, let alone sleeping on top of the stump.”
#4. They have already named the fox!
#5. Nowadays, the fox is asleep almost all the time she reveals herself. “Foxes are nocturnal. She leaves at night to hunt,” Sara added. “My parents did see her running down the main street by their house, but since everyone is indoors, for the most part, she wasn’t in any danger from cars. Otherwise, she hangs out on the stump when it’s sunny – sometimes she’s there and sometimes she’s not!”
#6. She sure is giving people joy!
#7. Usually, Sara’s parents try to stay out of the fox’s way but they still run into each other! Once, when my dad was bringing in groceries, she popped her head up from her nap and then went about napping. I think she’s relatively familiar with them now and isn’t scared by them being her neighbors!”
Sara said that there is a garage nearby that the fox might use to get to the stump. But, according to the Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust, a non-profit that protects wildlife by permanently preserving and connecting habitat, the fox might not even need it. Foxes can climb trees that are straight-up; they climb them to escape from predators and to have a nice nap in the sun. They have also been known to sleep in hawk and owl nests. In rare incidents, it’s rare, a fox will also raise their litter twenty or more feet above ground in a hollow tree. When they climb the tree they climb head first. But when they descend from the tree, they can go either way.
#8. “I think that she likes the spot because it’s sunny and protected,” Sara said. “She really only can be seen from my parent’s backyard, because she’s protected by the garage in the other yard. It’s a safe place to take a nap after a hunt!”
