Fox Kit Eating Cheese - Final Update?

 This might be the final update of the Saxonville Fox Den story. About a week ago, in mid-June, I decided to leave a stick of string cheese from the grocery store on the other side of the river, to test whether the kits have started venturing that far from the den yet. The cheese was left on the riverbank for 2 nights, with a trail camera recording everything.

The little gray, waddling fuzzballs we saw in March have already grown into something that I would have thought was an adult had I not been watching them all Spring. On the night that I set up the camera, One of these kits cautiously approached the camera...

It then left and came back, and circled around a few times, over the course of 8 videos. these are just the two that I think best sum it all up. In this second one, For the first time ever, one of the kits shows interest in the camera, giving a closeup of it's face:

At this point in the kits development, they are starting to explore their parent's territory, and are scavenging, foraging, and hunting the territory. As all of the kits start to get good at living off of their parent's territory, on their own, mom and dad will stop feeding them, and will start to compete with their kits. The parents will then be alone in time for the next mating season, (January-February).

 ...So the reason I'm calling this the last update, is because i probably wont set a camera there for a few weeks, and If I ever get footage of the kits after that, I probably won't be able to recognize them from the other adults in the area. I look forward to December, when I can see them repeat what they did last year, and I can record the whole process all over again, exept this time with the knowledge of already having seen it.

The next morning, The kit's father passed by the camera. The cheese had been eaten by this point, so he didn't even stop to sniff. All that was captured was his rear half dispearing off of the frame. I lost the video since I collected the camera a week ago, but here is a screenshot...

Besides the foxes, I got footage (also lost/deleted) of a Northern Flicker, and a Raccoon:

...I wonder if the Raccoon is the same individual that I saw at the tree root entrance back in early February, when It though about walking into the fox den, but reconsidered:

                                                              

                                                                  Thank you for reading.