A red fox, apparently a male watching over the den with his mate and pups inside. In this shot, one of the pups has wandered out, and dad very quickly got him back out of sight.

The den is dug in a large dirt pile right in the barnyard of a horse farm, about fifty feet from the barn, and very close to a dozen or so big Belgian horses (some are in the background in the photo), who just totally ignore the foxes, like they belong there (they probably have been there for months).

I shot several pictures over about ten minutes before papa fox apparently got uncomfortable with the attention and moved off behind the barn. The pup only appeared in one of the photos.