Fox Cubs in the Garden

February 22, 2026

We’d known foxes used the gardens around us for a while. We’d see glimpses of adult foxes at dusk, or find evidence of overnight digging. But we’d never seen cubs.

That changed one afternoon in late spring 2025 when I spotted movement through the kitchen window. The vixen had brought her litter out into our neighbour’s garden, and they were playing in the late afternoon sun. I grabbed my camera and stayed at the window, trying not to move too much in case they noticed.

What fox cubs are actually like

I don’t know what I expected, but “non-stop” about covers it. They tumbled over each other, chased things that weren’t there, and pounced on every leaf, shadow and sibling within range. If you’ve ever watched kittens play, it’s the same energy, except these were wild animals in a suburban Sheffield garden, and I was watching through the kitchen window, mesmerised.

I shot as many frames as I could, as well as a few videos. Most of them were blurred or badly framed because the cubs wouldn’t stay still for more than a second, but a few came out well enough to work from.

Three photos, three paintings

When I went through the photos afterwards, three stood out — not just as good photographs, but as paintings I wanted to make.

The first was a cub fully committed to a pounce: front paws in the air, about to land on one of its siblings. That became Pounce.

The second was a different moment entirely. One of the cubs had flopped down in the grass, chin resting on its paws, just watching. After an hour of constant action, that brief pause was what stuck with me. I’d taken dozens of action shots, but this quiet moment – a cub completely at rest between bouts of play – was the photo I kept coming back to. That became Pause.

The third wasn’t a cub at all. At some point during the afternoon one of the adult foxes noticed me and stood watching me intently. Just still and alert, keeping an eye on me while the cubs got on with it. That became Protect.

Painting all three

I painted these three wildlife oil paintings over a few sessions in my Sheffield home studio, each one on an 8×8″ Ampersand Gessobord panel. They were always intended as a set — three moments from the same afternoon, the same family, the same view through the kitchen window. But each has a different energy: the chaos of Pounce, the stillness of Pause, and the quiet watchfulness of Protect.

All three originals sold in the same weekend, which I’m delighted about. But I had prints made of each one, and they work well individually or as a trio. If you hang them together, you get the whole story of that afternoon — the play, the pause, and the parent in the background.

The prints

Each print is 9×9″ on archival fine art paper with fade-resistant pigment inks. If you buy all three together, there’s a 10% bundle discount applied automatically at checkout — no code needed.