FAR from fighting like cats and dogs, a fox and tortoise have become firm friends in a back garden.

Devoted animal lover Janet Colman is used to foxes popping into her Hove garden to snoop around and catch up with her menagerie of pets.

But last week, as she was having lunch with friend Prue Heron, she noticed how close one young fox and a tortoise had become.

Mrs Heron captured the “magical” friendship blossoming between the pair in a series of pictures as they watched from just metres away.

The fox and the 60-year-old female tortoise called ‘number one’ seemed to greet each other, walk around the garden together and sit together enjoying each other’s company for 20 minutes.

Mrs Heron said: “We were just chatting away when we were greeted by a red visitor and we saw him approach the tortoise. She wasn’t the slightest bit scared. It was quite magical, particularly because you rarely see wildlife in the middle of Hove.”

Ms Colman, of The Drive, is used to close encounters with all sorts of animals.

She said: “I’ve had several generations of foxes visiting my garden for nine years and foxes visited my garden in Beaconsfield Villas before that too. They are very friendly and very tame, sometimes coming right up to me.

“This latest visitor was a youngster who was particularly inquisitive. He came wandering down the garden, sniffing around and seemed a bit more alarmed by the tortoise than the other way around. Then they seemed to get on quite well.

“I feel like I’m living right in the country, I love that the garden is full of wildlife.”

The 69-year-old has five tortoises – a female and male aged in their 60s and two males and one female in their 30s – named number one to five.

Over the years Ms Colman has amassed a collection of foxes over the years, seen with her cat, sunbathing in the garden and investigating the garden ornaments.

Before retiring she spent 30 years running a pets’ holiday home looking after reptiles and rodents while their owners went on holiday.

FOX VS TORTOISE

Fox

Class of animal - Mammal
Family - Canidae
Characteristics - Bushy tail
Most common breed - Red fox
Weight - An average male weighs between 4.1 and 8.7 kg. 
Sounds - A whine made shortly after birth, yelp when 19 days old, call from one month old, growl when adult and a bark to warn against intruders. 
Diet - Carnivore 
Speed - Foxes trot or run as fast as 8 mph.


Tortoise 

Class of animal - Reptile
Family - Testudinidae
Characteristics - Protective shell
Most common species - There are hundreds but one of the better known is the leopard tortoise.
Weight - The average male of the largest tortoise species, the Galápagos giant tortoise, weighs 250 kg.
Sounds - Mainly munching from eating greens, but sometimes a little squeak if they are woken up during hibernation or a hiss if predators approach.
Diet - Herbivore 
Speed - Tortoises move very slowly on dry land, at only 0.17 mph. The fastest recorded tortoise speed is 5 mph.