Wildlife Sighting on Glenview Road

Last night we decided to take a break from a living room painting project, politics, government bailouts, and waning 401K’s and headed over to Hackney’s for dinner, where forgettable meals somehow end up being very fun. One of our younger family members had a great deal of merriment mimicking the Dan Seals ad (the one that plays over and over and that I always think is a Mark Kirk ad when I start to see it), answering a number of questions with “You bet I do!”

We returned to Wilmette via Glenview Rd and guess what we saw? A beautiful fox crossed directly in front of our car right at the Glenview-Wilmette border where the train tracks used to be! We agreed that there was no doubt that it was a fox, as the headlights of an oncoming car illuminated it perfectly! It was sleek and healthy looking with a white tip on its tail and was moving north very quickly, as if on a mission.

I looked up some information on foxes and found that they can be very beneficial as they “displace predators such as coyotes.” I was happy to read that, as I received an email alert from the Wilmette police not long ago about a problem coyote. I also found a number of recordings of sounds that foxes make, which you might find interesting if you hear wild animals at night when the windows are open. I also learned that a fox may have a territory as large as 19 square miles.This fox may have been just passing through and we were very lucky to spot him. After a very aggrevating couple of weeks in the news, I took this a good sign, indeed.