On October 3, I posted an entry about the domestic muscovy duck that wanders the neighborhood where I film on the Patuxent. I saw it again yesterday while I was down there. It was puttering around a little beach area. Where the marsh grass behind it meets the bank is a natural path that I have seen various animals use to navigate the area. I happened to glance back and saw a "stump" on the edge of the marsh grass. I thought to myself, I don't remember seeing a stump there. Then the stump moved. You have to realize, the stump was up in the shadowy area on the right hand side of the above photo.
The duck did not seem overly concerned about the fox. The muscovy never entered any further into the water than in the photo, but I guess it was ready to escape in that direction if it needed to. The fox approached to within ten feet or so at one point. I got the impression it is a young animal since it seemed kind of dumb about good technique. After about no more than two minutes, the fox spooked at the sound of a car on the road (it never saw me standing on the dock) and loped back into the woods. Looking at time code on images, the duck came back onto the beach after only a minute and fifteen seconds, with it's back to the spot where the fox had exited. In the other post, I speculated that the other muscovy may have been killed by a fox. This event makes it seem even more likely.
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