Been visiting northern Virgina...tough to believe all the red foxes I've seen (day and night). this is high residential area, and I'm not hunting just visiting my son.

Every night I can hear a kill or two, loud squells..long and plentiful. I can't figure out what they are feeding upon. Lots of squirrels...but I don't believe the squirrels are nocturnal.

Late last week I had 3 kill/sounds at the same time. So a 3 am I stalked on one kill sound, under moonlight. I got pretty close to where I thought the attack was taking place. I hearn a slight brush sooound about 3 feet away from me. I froze hoping for something to move. After waiting him out, a mange red shot out of the brush and passed within a few inches of me. My focus was on the fox, not the prey. He was nervous and stalked around about 25 yards off, then passed down the hill but I kept watching an then he cut around behind me (about 6 minutes I had him sighted). then I heard the prey animal kicking and scraping. I had no light, and couldn't see it even though it was only a foot away in a thick vegatation. Went back in the morning and the animal either crawled away or the fox came back.

Now, some of you folks that are in that area, what are they feeding upon???

I know rabbits are nocturnal and are the favorite of vixen here in PA, but I see no rabbits nor sign of rabbits.

hope some one answers this. you got my curosity up. i know here in southwest VA its rabbits and a few birds. but this is a rural area. do you think that in a high residental area especially with lots of lights that the squirrels might roam on a different time frame than rural areas

My guess would be it's rabbits they're feeding on. We have a good number of rabbits in the area where I live (adjacent to a farm) and we also hear the death throes, tho not that often. The number of late-night squealing incidents were stepped up a good bit last year when we found that a family of reds had taken up residence on our lot, or just adjacent to it for a month or so. And, accordingly, we also found our typically numerous rabbit sightings (daily) were way down for a good while too.

__________________
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote
a blank check made payable to "The United States of
America" for an amount of 'up to and including my life.
That is honor, and there are way too many people in this
country who no longer understand it.

thanks for the thoughts. still thinking about it.

The squealing suggests rabbits is the prey, to me.

We had a strange situation on our street in suburbia. Red foxes were often spotted, sometimes with kills such as possums. They also were taking kitty cats to the consternation of their owners. An animal service was called in and set out live capture traps. Within a couple of weeks ten (10) red foxes had been captured.

__________________
Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff.

I'm a fur trapper. 10 would not surprise me in the least in Fairfax county.

Red foxes are a menace in our towns and cities, here in the UK. On recent occasions they have been known to sneak into houses and attack babies and youngsters in their cots, even going up stairs into bedrooms. The vaste majority of city foxes however live in the trash cans at back of eating establishments. We who call them are still trying to work out how to make the sound of a curried chicken or a big mac I have spent many, many hours observing foxes and have come to the conclusion they will eat anything which wriggles and squeals( a baby for instance !!). They also eat a huge amount of worms, insects and wild fruit, plus carrion of any kind. Lambing time is an important fox control event here. I have seen two and three foxes sit and watch a ewe go down to have a second lamb, before darting in to try and grab her first born. I shot three like that one night. They were so intent on that lamb they didn't notice that their mate had fallen over or the 'smack' of the bullet arriving.
Don't shoot so many these days, one or two a month, but ten years ago I was killing ten a week no problem. We still have lots of them. 17HMR for close quarter stuff in populated areas, 17 Remington for mid range and my 22BR for longer shots.
City foxes always seem to have bad mange.

Hanshi If your local animal service is anything like ours, they probably released them a couple of miles away. They would be back home before you could blink. We get a sudden influx of city foxes appear in our fields. They just all sit there , totally bemused. I have shot foxes which have had a leg surgically removed and a professional stitching job done, before the 'charity' released them into our fields. They often smell of shampoo ;-)