The other day, while contemplating the year behind us and the unknown that lies ahead, I came across a fascinating clip of the red fox ‘mousing’ in the snow.
The beautiful fox has such absurdly good hearing, that she can pinpoint a mouse up to thirteen meters away and underneath one meter of snow. Wow.
Even more incredible, is the fact that the fox rarely has succes catching anything..UNLESS she’s facing north-east (20 degrees off from magnetic north, to be precise). By aligning the earth’s magnetic field with the angle of the sound waves she’s hearing, she calculates the exact distance and depth of her prey. And once the angle matches, she pounces with a success rate of 75 percent!
While looking at the fox with amazement, I thought that this is perhaps the best thing we can all do for the new year ahead- use our inner compass to position ourselves in the right direction and then, take a giant leap of faith.
We have to trust that we will come up with success, or at least with enough to eat.
xez
* Photographs by Cindy Goeddel, Michal O’Neal and Richard Peters, please click to enlarge and hover to see photographer credits.
Thumbnail photograph by Ashleigh Scully, footage by Discovery