Gray or red fox

Today is Friday the 13th, and as luck would have it—whether good or bad depends on your perspective—the weather turned rainy throughout the morning and afternoon. I had a lot of catch-up work in the a.m., so the frequent downpours didn't much matter. But by about two, I'd taken care of most of what had to be done, so I was itching to get out for a walk, weather or not. It was merely drizzling when I took off, armed (prudently) only with my waterproof Fuji, and traveling sans dSLR seemed OK... with one exception. In my neighbor's hilly meadow, I spotted a small canid in the grass. We've been seeing something ambling through our backyard and jumping off the rock walls that we guessed might be a gray or gray-phase red fox, so I tried to maneuver in for closer look and photograph. The critter rose nonchalantly out of the weeds and walked up-slope, then stopped and looked at me. I wished I'd had a stronger telephoto to capture more details, but I think this image does the ID trick: it's most likely a gray. Later in my walk, when the rains returned in buckets, I felt lucky I'd made my camera choice.