We have a 42 acre rural cabin property in Central TX., Gause to be precise. Three trips back, while slowly inching our way down the access lane to the cabin (our property is set say back off the county road), a red fox dashed in front of our car and walked, then trotted all the way down the lane right in front of us. Now we know who dug the 8", fairly deep hole under the front wooden steps of the cabin. We also know where the gophers and moles disappeared. ;) Last week he had dragged some loose leaves and grass to the entrance of his den, not sure for what purpose, as it was still there today when we drove down. I have read they put grass around their dens though.
Anyway, to get on with the main story here, I noticed today that something has been eating away at the hickory nuts on the ground. There was a pile of woody nut crumbles in front of the well house. One nut was cracked completely in half and the interior nut exposed. Then I noticed LOTS of hickory nuts chewed on. We have 3 Shagbark Hickory trees around the back of the cabin. My question to you today is..........Will foxes eat such things? I know they are omnivores. But hickory nuts? Man, it takes a hammer, brute force and all your strength on a hard rock to break those things in half, much less dig out the meat. They don't crack like English Walnuts, that's for sure.
We've only owned the property for 2 years and I haven't cracked any of the nuts open yet to see what they taste like, but I understand the Shagbark variety are cited in the literature as being "sweet", so likely they're pretty tasty. People do eat/cook with them, that I do know. I'm just curious if the fox would try to eat such things. I hear they'll eat grasshoppers & lizards (which we have there), fruit, rats, mice, snakes, gophers and moles. I think they will even eat some garden veggies, which we do NOT have there. Doubt the cayotes are doing it, as there's no sign of big enough holes being dug under the fence into the yard for it to be cayotes. There's only 1 hole dug out under the fence and it is only about 8" around, too small for cayotes. All the area hawks keep the squirrel population down, and I doubt a squirrel could chew one of these very hard nuts open anyway.
Another interesting thing I noted today. I have a cobalt blue glass vase inverted on a tall fence post down there. It had a cobalt blue solid glass paperweight glued on the top (inverted base) of the base with E6000 (very powerful glass glue). Today when we were down there, I noted the ball was gone. The town did have a bit of a wind storm sometime during the week as the yard bench was blown over by our fire pit. But even if the E6000 glue had given way in the wind storm (which has never happened to me in 4 years of using E6000 on exterior glass gluing projects), the heavy glass ball would have been on the ground below or nearby, don't ya think? It was nowhere to be seen within 10' of the vase in all directions. I think the fox must have carried it off somewhere, maybe his den, dunno. The folks on my UK garden forum tell me foxes will drag children's balls and small toys carelessly left in the yard clear down the street to other yards and the parents have to go retrieve the toys. So I wonder if our resident fox took the shiny curiosity off somewhere to play with it (or hoard it into his den).
Good looking. Foxy! 
