What an amazing experience! We were lucky to have a local wildlife photographer, Jean Hall, on the boardwalk one September morning on a mission to see a Worm-eating Warbler when she encountered an entirely different animal. While walking very slowly, listening for warbler flocks, she saw movement on the boardwalk ahead of her.
She looked and thought what most people might think: "Wow, that's a really small coyote." But then she saw the tail and realized it was a fox! She had never seen a gray fox before (we rarely see them on the boardwalk).
According to Jean, the fox was very shy. With her telephoto lens, she tried kneeling to get an eye-level shot but, it trotted away. She waited.
"After the third time he stuck his head around a curve in the boardwalk to look at me, I knew he really needed to get by me. At the same time, I noticed another person was coming up behind him.....towards us. I knew the fox was going to feel blocked in, so I ducked into one of those bench alcoves to watch. He literally flew past me. Should have had my phone out!"
We greatly appreciate Jean for sharing this story with us. In addition to being extremely talented, she consistently demonstrates tremendous ethics in her wildlife photography. Bravo!