Coyote Yipps

I’ve lost a variety of things while out and about in the parks — mostly items of clothing. My things tend to be earth toned, which doesn’t help when trying to locate them, but I seem to have found almost everything that went missing — they usually reappeared just lying on the ground where I inadvertently had dropped them.

marking a “foreign object” which happened to be my lost handkerchief

I found a brown coat within three weeks, a little faded from being in the sun but otherwise in good shape, to my surprise. Caps have turned up within a week of being lost; a scarf turned up two days later — it had been folded and put aside by a friend. And I always manage to find my lost handkerchiefs — one with the aid of a coyote who “pointed it out” to me when she decided to “mark” it!

And then there was the cap which I never did find. It disappeared a year ago. I had long since given up any hope of finding it — I had searched for it for weeks with no luck. It is the only object which I had permanently lost, I thought.

Then, yesterday I was taking photos at dawn of two coyotes playing “keep away”. I was focusing in on the exciting game the coyotes were playing, so I didn’t really notice the object inspiring their play until well into the game.

What was that limp “toy” they were playing with? As they played, the lost cap slowly came to mind as a far-fetched possibiliy. Hadn’t I lost it in this exact same vicinity? I made a note to myself to check it out when there were no coyotes around. So, later that day I returned, and, sure enough it was my cap! Should I take it with me or should I leave it for the coyotes? I decided to take it home — it would have just been trash in the park — where I washed it thoroughly several times and put it on! It had been my favorite cap.

But now I have another worry: What if the coyotes recognize it on my head and want it back?  Of course they won’t, but the thought did occur to me!

playing keep away with a found object

Notice the neat variety of voices in this family concert. It involves four coyotes: two youths and two adults!  It was prompted by the sounds of a distant siren — or, maybe it wasn’t distant, but just sounded distant because of the wind and fog. The fog was thick and the wind was gusting, creating the ambient sound you hear in the recording. The weather added to the mood of the “piece”!

I think, possibly, that a happy family chorus serves the same purpose for coyotes as a big family hug!

“I’ve gotta see what’s happening over there”

An all encompassing curiosity takes a young coyote up on its tippy-toes! This coyote was out foraging when a large Red-Tail hawk appeared, twisting this way and that before landing  to catch something — I could not see what it was because I was concentrating on the coyote, but it could have been a bird, vole, gopher, squirrel, snake or possibly a lizard. Some of these are the same things that coyotes like catching and eating. Was the bird’s activity of interest, or was it the food the bird was eating which interested the coyote?

The strange flight pattern and jerking movements of the bird caught the coyote’s attention initially, but bushes blocked its line of vision by the time the hawk hit the ground. What to do? Make yourself tall! This little coyote stood tall like this, on its hind legs, straining to see, for close to 8 seconds. — that’s a very long time when you come to think of it.  But then the hawk apparently moved out of sight again because the coyote ran closer and stood up high again.  This time, the coyote must have come too close for comfort, because in a flash he turned tail and distanced himself before turning around to watch the hawk fly off.