The Fox
Red foxes live around the world in many diverse habitats including forests, grasslands, mountains, and deserts. They also adapt well to human environments such as farms, suburban areas, and even large communities. The red fox's resourcefulness has earned it a legendary reputation for intelligence and cunning.
Red foxes are solitary hunters who feed on rodents, rabbits, birds, and other small game—but their diet can be as flexible as their home habitat. Foxes will eat fruit and vegetables, fish, frogs, and even worms. If living among humans, foxes will opportunistically dine on garbage and pet food.
Like a cat's, the fox's thick tail aids its balance, but it has other uses as well. A fox uses its tail (or "brush") as a warm cover in cold weather and as a signal flag to communicate with other foxes.
Foxes also signal each other by making scent posts—urinating on trees or rocks to announce their presence.
In winter, foxes meet to mate. The vixen (female) typically gives birth to a litter of 2 to 12 pups. At birth, red foxes are actually brown or gray. A new red coat usually grows in by the end of the first month, but some red foxes are golden, reddish-brown, silver, or even black. Both parents care for their young through the summer before they are able to strike out on their own in the fall.
Red foxes are hunted for sport, though not extensively, and are sometimes killed as destructive pests or frequent carriers of rabies.
More information about Red foxes can be found at other sites. click on the links below:
Originally I planned on making my fox a bit like Robin Hood then realised that Disney had already beat me to it and I did not even realise until someone pointed it out so whilst looking on the internet I stumbled upon a picture of a fox with a camera and straight away I wanted my character to be a photographer.
I looked into literature that included Foxes and folk lore and came across a site that included fox mythology as well as a few other things. It shows stories that include the animal from different parts of the world.
The fox is included in quite a few famous stories by well known authors such as:
- Owen Davey- Foxly feast
- Dr Seuss- Fox in Socks
- Pat Hutchins- Rosie's walk
- Roald Dahl- Fantastic Mr Fox
The symbolic meanings associated with the fox are:
- Physical or mental responsiveness, increased awareness
- Cunning, seeing through deception
- Ability to find its way around, to be swift in tricky situations
I was looking for some information about the red fox and came across a site that has a lot of information about their habitat, characteristics etc.
There are a number of films including foxes such as:
- Fantastic Mr Fox
- The fox and the hound
- The Fox
- Robin hood (Disney)
I decided to look into different variations of how others people have drawn foxes from very basic designs to quite detailed.
For my fox character I really liked the image of the fox with the camera so have decided I want to do a fox photographer that takes pictures of humans without the humans knowing. He is a humanologist that hides to take photos.
The Deer
Six species of deer exist in the wild in the UK: red and roe deer are the only native species; though fallow deer are now normally considered part of our natural heritage, having been introduced in the 11th Century and possibly before. Sika, muntjac, and Chinese water deer were all introduced within the past 150 years. These six species differ in their geographic distribution, abundance, population growth rate, behaviour, and impacts.
It is widely accepted by government agencies, NGOs, and academics that deer are more abundant and widespread now than at any time in the past 1000 years. Deer populations have increased rapidly in recent decades due to several factors, including:
- Milder winters;
- Changes to agriculture such as the planting of winter crops;
- Increased woodland cover;
- Escapes and releases from parks and farms; and
- Greater connectivity between green spaces in urban areas
At present, there may be as many as 2 million deer in the UK. However, accurate assessment of deer numbers is very difficult because deer are secretive animals and are free to roam the landscape. Evidence for increasing deer numbers is found in the expansion of their geographic range and the increase in deer impacts. Deer occurrence is not restricted to rural areas, and they are increasingly found in suburban and urban areas.
With a lack of natural predators in the UK, the role of human control becomes more important. An estimated 350,000 deer are culled each year. Road accidents are the second biggest cause of deer mortality. Despite this, deer are continuing to expand in range and have increased impacts, and it appears that current mortality rates are not high enough to prevent the rise in deer populations.
Here are some links to more information about Deers:
I looked at different types of Deer to see which one I would prefer basing my character on. To me they look very wise and majestic, especially the white tailed deer.
Wikipedia helped me to look at different types of deer, their species and habitat.
Deers have been in films such as:
- Bambi
- The deer hunter
- Snow white
As well as children's books such as:
- Mary Lyn Ray- Deer Dancer
- James Thurber- The White Deer
- Virginia Vail- Oh Deer!
Different character designs of deers:
For my character design I decided that I wanted to do a wise gentleman Deer that keeps the younger animals well behaved. Teaches them manners and how to use them correctly.
The Dormouse
The Dormouse is one of Britain's most endangered mammals. This is because much of its habitat of deciduous woodland and hedgerows has been lost. Competition by Grey Squirrels for food may also be a contributing factor.
This small attractive woodland rodent is mainly nocturnal. It is arboreal, spending its active time in shrubs and trees where it searches for food. Its diet consists mainly of fruit, berries, flowers and insects. In the autumn hazelnuts can be a very important source of food as they have to build up their fat reserves as they hibernate overwinter. In fact the Dormouse can hibernate for as much as three quarters of a year if the weather is bad. They hibernate on the ground, rolled tightly into a ball in a nest of leaves and grass. Their body temperature and heart rate are lowered and they become torpid and cold to the touch. Hibernating enables them to survive by "shutting down" during cold weather and they can even do this in spring or summer. Thus they have long periods of inactivity which probably contributes to the long life span of 5 years.
Dormice breed once or twice a year usually producing 4 young which are independent in about 2 months. Their nest are often built of grass interwoven with honeysuckle. The nests can be anywhere from a few feet above the ground in brambles to high up in the forest canopy. Their colour is light brown with furry long tail and prominant beady eyes.
Dormice are found mainly in the south of England particularly in Devon and Somerset. Other favoured areas include Kent and Sussex with sporadic populations elsewhere. They are largely absent in the north of England.
Dormice like to eat hazelnuts and if you examine a hazelnut shell it is possible to tell for certain whether it has been eaten by a dormouse. Look at the picture of the hazelnuts on the left. Both have been eaten by Dormice. The characteristics are a neat smooth circular cut to the inside of the opening and tiny radiating teeth marks on the outside. Woodmice also like hazelnuts and eat them in a similar way but the inside of the cut shell is not smooth as woodmice gnaw across the cut. Squirrels just crack the nuts open with their powerful jaws.
For more information on the doormouse visit these other sites:
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Pteropus. flying fox mega bats
They are called bats, megabats, fruit bats and flying foxes – it’s all the same animal. This is confusing because they are no relation to foxes, fruit is not usually their main food, and they are very different from other members of the bat family. The bat family can be divided approximately into two groups: the megabats (flying foxes are megabats) and microbats (the little ones that are talked about in stories from Europe and USA). Flying foxes do not occur naturally in Europe or USA, so all those spooky bat stories have nothing to do with our flying foxes.
In many ways flying foxes are more biologically similar to monkeys and humans than they are to the microbats. They do not use sound, or, echolocation to “see” but have excellent eyesight like ours in daylight and they see better than we do at night. They do not hibernate in winter, as is common with microbats. Most of them prefer to roost in trees and avoid caves and buildings, so will not come into your house, as do micros. They are principally vegetarian, whereas microbats commonly eat insects. They certainly do not suck blood like the “vampire” bats that are found in Central America. There are more differences but these are some of the obvious ones.
Maybe they are called fruit bats because they look like dark fruit hanging in trees. Unfortunately this name gives the impression that they are big fruit eaters but in fact these in Bellingen concentrate more on nectar and pollen. People are just more likely to notice what they are eating when it is fruit, because we like to eat fruit too.
Most of the flying foxes on Bellingen Island are the species called Greyheaded Flying fox, and these are found only in Australia. However the numbers of Black Flying foxes is increasing. Ten years ago Black Flying foxes were rare summer visitors from their more northerly range but now you can always find some of them roosting in Bellingen. This is part of a general pattern of the Black species spreading southwards.
Little red Flying foxes visit occasionally in summer when food supplies are short in their inland range. Australia’s fourth main type, the Spectacled Flying fox,is never found naturally this far south of its North Queensland range.
Three species: Greyheaded, Black and Little red Flying foxes.
For more information on megas bats please visit:
I wanted to do my bat character as an evil scientist that does crazy experiments or might have been a science teacher.
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