For season 2 of “America’s National Parks” we spent several weeks filming for Episode 1: Grand Teton National Park. Our mission: to get footage of red foxes mousing and eating the unsuspecting rodent.
When winter sets in, food becomes hard to find, but the red fox, and even coyotes, have evolved a cunning way of finding food. They use their powerful ears to listen for movements under the snow - the pitter-patter of small rodent feet on ice as they move below the snow throughout tunnels they have dug. When the fox hones in on the noise, the animal jumps up as high as it can go, then breaks through the surface mouth first and grabs the small mouse below. This technique is not always successful, sometimes the snow-pack is too hard for the animal to break through, and it only realizes it when it flops over onto the ice with a sore snout. Sometimes, the red fox must break through two or more feet of snow to get to the animal below. The red fox has to have a lot of patience and persistence when it comes to hunting this way.
To get THE SHOT, it took approximately 40 hours of effort to capture a single mousing event. We captured a total of 4 in a two week period. These behaviors happen sporadically, and only occur where mice and voles are present and happen to be traveling through the snow near a red fox. Many days were spent staking out potential fox habitats and identifying where certain individuals like to hang out and hunt. Once the baseline locations were established, the crew spent hours going in between sites, setting up, and watching for red foxes to appear. As these animals are crepuscular - meaning they are most active at dawn and dusk, the crew had to be out ready to film before the sun rose and set each day. We used a telephoto lens so we could remain far enough away from the action so we did not disturb the fox’s hunt.
Learn more about the series and the technology that went in to capturing the full splendor of nature in America’s National Parks here on PetaPixel.
ABOUT THE SERIES
National Geographic takes viewers on an extraordinary venture across world-famous and lesser-known national parks to reveal the diversity and wonder of this beautiful country, from the lush valley floors of Yosemite to the constantly erupting volcanoes of Hawai’i. The series is produced and narrated by Garth Brooks and available now on Disney +.