Coyote Yipps

Today I came upon these three coyotes playing a frenzied, or maybe frantic, game of chase, or so it appeared at first. It is the family where the dad has been trying to get his son to leave the territory. Youngster was actually evading Dad in this chase pretty well, and he was having fun doing so — it appeared to be a game for him. But Dad seemed to have more of a purpose to his chasing. When Dad finally did catch the male youngster, he threw him down and I heard yelps of complaining pain from the youngster.

The male youngster soon extracted himself from under Dad good-naturedly to continue the play, but I suppose the look on his father’s face dissuaded him from continuing. Instead, he fled away a few feet with tail under, ears back, arched back and back legs brought forward: this was a submissive run. He then sat facing away from his dad so there could be no eye contact and so he wouldn’t be confronted — but his ears were turned down and back, which still allowed him to keep track of Dad. Dad wandered off, and son got up and looked back at him leaving.

Son then ran towards his supportive sister — see below. Notice his ears airplaned out to the sides, he is to the left. She has a stiff stance and her hackles were up initially. She allowed him to encompass her snout in his — this is fairly new behavior by both of them — and then they sat calmly together and just watched the goings on in the park before all three coyotes took off together.