Britain’s rarest animal — the legendary ‘unlucky’ black fox — spotted TWICE in a day including one sunbathing on a garden wall

The recent sightings mean he was not the only one left and that there must be two breeding foxes carrying the recessive gene.

The most recent sighting was reported by Mateja Kuder, 42, who spotted the black fox sunning itself on a garden wall on Wednesday at 7.30am.

She said: "After I closed the window I looked up she was looking at me.

"I took off my slippers and started to run across the house to find where my tablet was so that I could take some photos.

"To my surprise when I came back she was still there. There was less than a metre between us.

"I knew it was a fox and thought it wasn't a big deal until I did some research and realised how rare it was.

"When you think 'Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them' the answer is apparently 'in Halifax'."

Less than an hour earlier Craig Brennan, 47, spotted one of the incredible creatures on his patio.

He said: "I was in the kitchen when out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark shadow.

"I thought was just a reflection but when I got close to the window I saw it was a black fox.

"It was sniffing round the bird table we have on the decking.

"After a minute or two and after looking at me it decided to slope off back down the decking steps, through our garden and disappeared again.

"I have heard lots since how rare it is to see one of these so I feel very privileged and hope it visits again."

The first sighting was in a garden in Halifax where a black fox spent 20 minutes exploring in January.

Then earlier this month another resident of the town was just six feet from one. He said: "It was black with a bit of silver and my dogs do not put it off my house."

Former zookeeper Hayley de Ronde, spokeswoman for Black Foxes UK, said: "We have a suspicion that the most recent sighting is the same fox and a relative of the famous Black Fox Bob.

"There is certainly a higher concentration of melanism in the area than you would expect.

"It is also possible that the appearance of melanism in UK foxes is natural and it is topography and inbreeding that is keeping the gene expressed in small communities.

"Melanistic animals are naturally bolder than their non melanistic counterparts, and now breeding season is over and weaning is about to begin it may be that the fox just felt the need to take advantage of what peoples gardens had to offer."

They are the rarest animal in Britain, partly because they were extensively hunted for their fur in the past.

The unusual colouring is normally seen on growing cubs before the fox develops its dark chestnut coat.

But some red foxes remain black due to a rare genetic glitch, which dates back hundreds of years.

Both parents have to carry the rarer recessive melanic gene - that causes a black coat - but even then there is only a one in four chance of having a cub with a dark coat.

In Gaelic tradition, black foxes are bringers of bad luck and in Medieval times, villages were afraid of seeing one believing it was an omen of trouble or bad luck.

Country villagers traditionally told stories of how the fox was as "black as night, so that it could live in a man's shadow and never be seen".

It has been speculated in the past that the seemingly high concentration of black foxes in Halifax could be down to a collection of pets released during WW2.

In 2008 one was spotted in a graveyard near Chorley, Lancs.

Four years later one of the near-mythical creatures was filmed in Hertfordshire - and days later was run over and killed.

Last year an amateur photographer snapped one in his garden in Hounslow, London, and another was photographed in a quarry in Dorset.

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