One day last week, a lone coyote hung out behind our house all day long. It poked around. It hunted. It slept. I began to worry something had happened to its pack, based on the way it kept looking around.
Since coyotes often kill dogs around here, I kept mine inside all day. They were not happy. They could see it out the windows and barked a lot, but even with our property fenced, I could not take the chance. Often what looks like a lone coyote will lure a dog outside its fence, then the others come in for the kill.
But, that day, this one indeed looked alone. I don’t know if it’s a boy or girl, so I’m saying IT. My guess, since it seemed alone, was that it’s either a pregnant female or a lone adolescent of some sort.
Clearly, this one was well fed that day, though. Around lunchtime, I watched it catch 4 voles back-to-back. Pounce, eat. Pounce, eat. Pounce, eat. Pounce, eat.
Lilly and Ginko both hunt in the summer time. They catch mice. They dig up voles. They chase rabbits. And, I often brag about how good they are. BUT, after watching a natural-born hunter, their efforts seem comical at best.
Sure, Lilly pounces — high, arcing leaps. But, she rarely catches anything with that initial landing. It usually takes some scrabbling about.
But, not this coyote. Jump. Kill. That’s it. What it came up with looked pretty big to me, so I’m guessing voles, not mice. Since there was no pursuit, I’m also assuming not rabbit.
After such a good lunch, the coyote took a nap.
(I’m sorry. The photo got lost in the internet abyss at some point. I cannot find the original to upload again.)
When it awoke, it stretched just like my dogs would and continued to poke around on the ridge behind us all afternoon.
A couple days later, the dogs were barking like nuts out by the southwest corner of our property. I walked up the hill to see what was going on, and there were 2 coyotes hunting about 40 feet from our back fence. It took me a while to get my dogs to LEAVE IT and come with me. But I got them safely inside. Then, I went back up the hill to look.
One of the coyotes slunk off as I was hollering at my dogs, but it cautiously came back even though I was standing right there. I came inside. I was glad to see our loner from earlier indeed had a partner, if not a pack.
Around here, coyotes often get shot, just for being coyotes. That makes me sad.
I certainly worry about my dogs, especially since Lilly tangled with a coyote on our property in spring 2005, but I like to think that if I’m mindful or their presence then I can keep the dogs safe. But, I’m not afraid of coyotes myself. When two came blasting out of the woods one fall, when Lilly and I were on a hike and had seen far too many mountain lions in recent weeks, I wasn’t afraid of them … once I realized it was coyotes and not big cats. I was relieved, actually. I just hollered at them, and they moved away from us.
No harm, no foul.
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