High Schoolers Capture a Fox Family on Film After Installing a Webcam in the Woods

It’s a scene any professional nature photographer would be lucky to capture, and it was filmed by a group of high school freshmen.

According to Laughing Squid, a group of eight students and two teachers from High Technology High School in Lincroft, New Jersey, recorded the footage after discovering a fox den in the woods behind a nearby community college. They set up a camera trap to tape the family in its natural habitat. Since then, the team has captured the daily activities of two fox parents and at least nine babies.

Here’s footage of the mother fox nursing her pups:

And here’s a video of several fox kits playing:

Over the course of a month, the students watched the young foxes learn to fend for themselves. Now that the pups have matured, the webcam activity has slowed down. On May 5, student Kelly Qiang wrote on the project’s webpage:

"For the past few weeks, the mother has been bringing dead animals to the den, since the babies have started to eat solid food. During the past week, the fox have not been seen as often as before, so we are suspecting that the kits are learning to hunt for their own food, or they have moved to a different den."

[h/t Laughing Squid]