About Fake Winters & Red Fox in Frost Photography 2

Enjoy more from my Frozen Fox Collection

Dream Summers and Worthless Winters

Winters just aren’t what they used to be. While our new and “improved” climate has gifted us the summers of our dreams, we’ve been short-changed on the winter side of things. Some of us still remember the days when we could ice-skate to school. When we built snowmen every day. When snowdrifts piled up against the front door and the sled was permanently parked outside. Snow fell weekly – if not daily – and skating was simply… normal. And the longer ago it all happened, the deeper the snow gets in our memories and the lower the temperatures drop. The frozen toes and always too thin coats are just small inconveniences we prefer to forget.

Grandma Remembers

But one thing is certain: back then, winters were real. We even have (or should I say ‘had’?) our own famous Elfstedentocht*!
These days we make do with tiny winter-teasers: a fleeting snow shower, a few frosty fern patterns on a bus shelter, or a brief hailstorm. If you happen to look out of your window in the middle of the night, you might just catch a glimpse of the Winter King racing past, leaving the land dusted white, only for late sleepers to miss winter altogether. No more weeks of snow, only a few hours at best.

Red Fox in Snow: A Collector’s Item

Until last week, when this soggy-winter-rule was suddenly broken by a proper old-fashioned cold spell! Almost all of the Netherlands was treated to genuine snowstorms and serious frost, and for a moment there was nothing else anyone talked about. Headlines screamed of horror winters and Russian bears. A national weather alert emptied the motorways and brought the trains to a standstill. Because yes, this is what happens when a country forgets how to winter. The Netherlands worked from home, which, let’s be honest, mostly meant free ice-leave. Children saw snow for the very first time and finally understood what their parents had been talking about. For a moment, we all became little Eskimos.

And knowing me, you would expect me to seize my chance and photograph foxes in the snow. My gloves were warmed up, and I was completely winter-ready. There was just one unforeseen detail that threw snow in my gears: the entire country was white and frozen except for one tiny, insignificant patch. And of course – you guessed it – that patch happened to be exactly where the foxes live! You couldn’t make it up. A fox in the snow was already rare, but now it has become a true collector’s item.

Fake Winter

Fortunately, sometimes nature offers a small consolation prize: hoarfrost. When the coast is just a touch too warm for proper winter weather, a pinch of frost, a hint of mist, and a breath of cooling can mix into a perfect winter glaze. Frost is essentially a kind of fake winter, but that doesn’t make it any less magical. The scenery looks and feels convincingly like the real thing.

And although this delicate decoration often melts away with the very first sunbeam, you might, if you’re very quick and incredibly lucky, catch a fox in these perfect conditions. And in that brief moment, when you see a beautiful red fox standing in an endless white wonderland, you forget everything. Suddenly it is just like it used to be, when winters seemed endless and you could play outside in the snow until the evening tucked the winter away for a new winter morning.

And the fact that this miniature winter lasted only an hour… somehow makes it even more magical. And besides; we still have the photos!

* De Elfstedentocht, or Eleven cities tour is a long-distance tour skating event on natural ice in the Netherlands (Friesland), almost 200 kilometers (120 mi) long. The Elfstedentocht is the biggest ice-skating tour in the world. A ‘magical’ ice thickness of an average of 15 cm is required to support the 16,000 skaters. Although it used to be held every few years, the last Elfstedentocht was held in 1997 (!). And it’s said that, due to climate change, it will never happen again.