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Fox Hut

Author

Sam Ridley

Field naturalist and editor, Fox Hut

South-west England · 44 articles on Fox Hut

How I got here

I started watching foxes properly in my twenties, from the window of a rented flat backing onto a railway embankment. There was a vixen who used the same gap in the fence every night at about ten past nine, and after three weeks of writing down the time she appeared, I realised I had accidentally started doing fieldwork.

Since then I have run mammal transects for local wildlife trusts, spent more cold evenings than I can count sitting against hedges waiting for something to move, and volunteered on spring call-outs for cubs that turned out — nine times in ten — not to need rescuing at all. Most of what I know came from being wrong in the field and then reading enough to understand why.

Fox Hut exists because most fox writing online is either folklore or copied from other websites. Every article here is checked against published research and against what actually happens on the ground, and it says plainly when the two disagree or when the evidence is thin.

The journey, in order

  1. 2011

    The vixen on the embankment

    A rented flat next to a railway line, a fox that kept to a timetable, and a notebook I started keeping mostly out of boredom. That notebook turned into a habit that has not stopped since.

  2. 2013–2016

    Learning to read the ground

    Volunteer mammal surveys for a county wildlife trust taught me that seeing a fox is the least reliable way to study one. Prints in wet mud, scat on a molehill and a worn gap under a fence tell you far more, and they are there in the morning whether or not you were.

  3. 2016–2019

    Cub season call-outs

    Three springs helping with rescue call-outs. The lesson that stuck: most 'orphaned' cubs have a parent fifty metres away waiting for the person standing over them to leave. It changed how I write every piece of advice on this site.

  4. 2019–2022

    Cameras, and being proved wrong

    Trail cameras on runs and earths showed me how much I had been guessing. Foxes I assumed were one animal were three. A den I was sure was disused had cubs in it. Cameras are the cheapest cure for confident nonsense that I know.

  5. 2022–present

    Fox Hut

    Writing up fifteen years of notes properly, checking each claim against the literature, and publishing the sources so anyone can argue with me. Articles get revisited when the evidence changes, and the 'last checked' date only moves when the text does.

What I actually know about

  • Red fox behaviour and territory mapping
  • Field sign identification: tracks, scat, earths and runs
  • Urban fox ecology and human–wildlife conflict
  • Wildlife survey methods, including camera trapping
  • Practical, welfare-first advice on living alongside foxes

Experience and independence

  • Volunteer mammal surveyor, county wildlife trust (2013–2019)
  • Trained in humane wildlife handling through a rescue volunteer programme
  • Member of a national mammal recording scheme, submitting fox records annually
  • No commercial relationship with pest control, fur or hunting interests

How I write these articles

  1. Start with the question someone actually asked me, usually in a garden or by email, rather than with a topic.
  2. Write down what I have seen myself, and mark clearly which parts are observation and which are inference.
  3. Check every factual claim against published research or a national wildlife body, and cite it at the foot of the article.
  4. Say so when the evidence is thin or contested, instead of picking the tidier answer.
  5. Revisit the article when something changes, and only move the ‘last checked’ date when the text actually changed.

The full editorial policy, including what Fox Hut will not publish, is on the about page.

Articles by Sam Ridley

See all 44 articles →