Coyote Yipps

On this outing, their tight bond manifests itself through waiting for, watching out for, communicating with, searching for and constant eye-contact with each other.

Dawn was breaking as I entered a park to hear faint distressed barking in the distance. It was the kind of coyote barking that occurs when they’ve been chased by a dog. It was the male of a pair who was belting out his displeasure. I hurried until I was right next to the sound and recorded it, though I could see no coyote. When it stopped I followed the path to find the male up ahead of me. He trotted along, turning to look at me once and then climbed an embankment where he looked around. I knew he was either looking for the dogs or for his mate. After a few minutes, he trotted on and then dashed into the grasses to this heartwarming scene, in photo below. She had probably been with him when the dog incident occurred. He had stayed put and howled to keep attention on himself while she made her getaway.

Together after being separated by a dog, after which *he* howled in order to draw attention to himself and away from *her* so she could slither away from danger. Here they are curled up together in the grass for a moment.

After their short greeting, they walked on, each hunting alone several hundred feet apart. They kept checking on each other and then headed up the hill where I was standing. The male came up and waited, but the female saw me and preferred taking the long way around me. He then followed her, and they both trotted off together on the path.

I took a circuitous route so as not to interfere. When I next saw them they were still trotting along together. That’s when a dog darted at them and the male gave chase. The owner remembered that it’s best to keep dogs leashed in a coyote area. Then I lost sight of the male, but I followed the female as she foraged in tall grasses. She did so for about 20 minutes on a quiet, untraversed area of the park, but she didn’t catch anything.

trotting along together

At the end of this stretch of her hunting, both she and I looked down to see the male waiting calmly for her on a rock — looking around for her. She began heading down the hill towards him when suddenly he bolted up, saw and assessed what was coming from the other direction and fled: it was a large golden retriever who had caught sight of the coyote and was coming after it. The coyote was fast, and I let the owner know what was going on. So many dog owners are totally oblivious to what their dogs are doing. The dog and owner then went the other way.

Now, the female was out of sight. The male doubled around and headed back to where I had last seen the two coyotes together. He sniffed around and marked the area. People were passing, so he slithered under a bush until all was clear and then headed out again on the trail. Just then a runner appeared with his two dogs. The dogs did not see the coyote, but the coyote saw the dogs, and the owner saw the coyote. The owner leashed one of his dogs, turned and went the other way. Yay! More and more dog-walkers are learning to move away from the coyotes! The coyote just stood and watched him go. Maybe he was surprised that the dogs hadn’t come after him.

So the coyote turned and headed down a grassy hill into the brush. I had seen a lot of psychological contact and togetherness in this mated coyote pair, but also I had seen plenty of dog intrusions. About half an hour later a siren sounded and I recorded the male responding to it from the brush he had entered. Again, I didn’t see him as he howled.  Later on, I had one more glimpse of the male on the other side of the park before he descended, again, into the brush, this time for the duration of the day.

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