Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s out there! And especially to my mom, who is an amazing and incredible woman. I’ve very lucky that she’s my mom and I never tell her enough how much I appreciate her. And also to my wife who is an amazing mom to our daughter. I am so fortunate.

It’s not foxy Friday yet, but I thought a little fox cuteness would be good for the day. This is an older shot, can’t remember from when but most of the snow in the area has finally melted now.

I’ve never seen any place locally where common loons nest, so I assume they only migrate through to locations further north. When they do come through it is certainly a treat. Their call is one of the most haunting sounds in nature, right up there with an elk bugle or a wolf howl. I’ve spent some time recently photographing loons as they pass through and it’s been a lot of fun but challenging too.

This photo illustrates why cross fox and silver fox are considered “forms” or variations of the species Vulpes Vulpes, or commonly called red fox. In order to be a subspecies of the red fox, these two forms would need to be isolated genetically and to not interbreed with “normal” red fox, though they are certainly capable of doing so. But both silver fox and cross fox variants share the same geographic areas and produce offspring that can show the genetic variant or also produce “normal” red fox kits, as seen here as a kit interacts with it’s father