Slideshow: Gray Foxes in Tam Valley

We don't need to wander far to be reminded of our proximity to wildlife here in Mill Valley. Sometimes those reminders are right outside our door.

For Tam Valley documentary filmmaker and photographer Arnie Battaglene, such a reminder presented itself in spectacular fashion recently, as he spotted a family of Gray Foxes who have a den on the hillside behind the apartment he shares with his girlfriend and her two daughters.

The foxes had been pointed out to Battaglene by a neighbor. He spotted them again on a recent evening and took a series of shots through his apartment window with an old Nikon D2H and 300mm Tamron lens.

"The cubs stay hidden in the thick brush until dusk, when one of the parents usually arrives with food," says Battaglene, who helps run the 48-hour Documentary Film Challenge in Fairfax and works on nonprofits efforts like the Measure B campaign and with the Marin Homeless Care Team. "It is then the cubs come out and scamper over the rocks, playing freely as the parent oversees. Unless a parent is there, the cubs stay hidden or at best make short forays on the edges of the small rocky clearing."

Battaglene says that the den is situated in an ideal location, surrounded by a large retaining wall on one side, downed trees and a thick wooded hillside.

"It was delightful to see them," he says. "Not such a surprise to see wild animals around here, but it was genuinely exciting to see such beautiful animals and touching to see the interaction between the cubs and the parent. The cubs where just kids playing and having fun."