Foxes straddle many a line… canine by classification but feline by disposition… stalking rather than chasing… preferring a solitary existence… cunning over bravado… an illustration of convergent behaviour shaped as much by ecology as by genetics… the small-prey, low-energy hunting strategy shaping a demeanour that belies their ancestry… and they slip through folklore much the way they move through landscapes… their intelligence is rarely pure cleverness… it’s adaptive, situational… reliant on timing, on knowing when to act and when to disappear… choosing wit over force, subtlety over spectacle…

We were tracing circles in the winter sand – stalking a flock of Great Indian Bustards as they combed through the grassland for grub – when a sudden movement caught the eye… knowing this was a desert fox – or a white-footed fox, if we defer to the recent change in nomenclature – we followed its trail, hoping it hadn’t disappeared into the intricate tapestry of oblivions it meticulously etches onto the habitat… luckily, it hadn’t, and was preoccupied with what seemed like an impromptu session of cleaning… there’s only so much that can escape its auditory nous though, and a grumbling diesel engine definitely isn’t one of them… so with an irate glance, the canid disappeared into the infinity of the desert…

There was another individual we saw before dusk came to pass, but I was too slow with the camera and the creature was in its quintessential restive state of being, leaving one to muse in its wake… on how they appear at thresholds – between forest and village, day and night, truth and trickery… half-seen, never quite held… aloof yet demure, rarely owned, never fully domesticated… albeit the one major threat they face is contracting diseases from domesticated animals… trickster, messenger, survivor, omen… foxes somehow resist being fixed in meaning… adapting, evading…

Musing on a desert fox, Desert National Park, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan