Pestering and Taunting: Sibling Rivalry

28 Nov 2018 Leave a comment

by yipps:janetkessler in family interactions, life cycle, sibling rivalry, siblings, social animals, social behavior, social interactions, youngsters


Sibling rivalry and discord are part-and-parcel of coyote families, just as are the formation of tight and everlasting bonds and friendships.

Here a younger sibling continues to harasses his sister (see Yearling Taunts) through body blows/bangs/punches or smacks. He seems to have a need to egg-her-on, whereas she just wants to be left alone atop the mound. This younger brother followed her there explicitly to taunt her and dives into his activity the minute she tries lying down. This is now an established behavior between these two.

No other coyote in this family engages in the type of body blows he performs at the beginning of this video except his mother. Mom is an expert at this, and this 8-month old pup watched and learned from her, and now uses his sister as his punching bag to practice his technique. Coyotes are keen observers: they learn by watching and copying. It’s fascinating to watch.

After the body bangs, the younger sibling continues to be “in his sister’s face” by yanking up dried sticks disruptively right next to her. He’s purposefully making himself into an utter nuisance and is probably hoping for a rise from her.

Eventually, a third older sibling comes to check out the activity, but he soon leaves because the disruptive behavior is not enough to warrant interference. This older sibling is very mild, peace-loving, and generally aloof from the first two, but he has occasionally been a disciplinarian when their behavior became too disruptive, and he also has approached the female to comfort her after some of the youngster’s harassment sessions, which lately are growing in number and intensity.

Coyote families are orderly, so growing disruptive behavior is not tolerated for long. This behavior will eventually lead to someone’s dispersal.

Goats!

23 Nov 2018 6 Comments

by yipps:janetkessler in goats

For variety, occasionally I write about other animals than just coyotes. This post here was simply going to address what kind of coyote/goat encounters existed when goats were allowed to weed-by-grazing where coyotes lived. Although I touch on this, the post became one about citygrazing.com

It all began when I was asked if I had seen “THE goats”. WHAT goats? I love goats! I went to look. It was in the area where I watch coyotes and I wondered how the coyotes and goats fared in the same area.  I spoke with Doug there, the goatherd. He gave me the contact for his boss, Genevieve. Well, I found out a lot more than just how the goats and coyotes got along, and it was hugely interesting! More

Yearling Taunts Older Sister As He Practices Body Blows

18 Nov 2018 2 Comments

by yipps:janetkessler in sibling rivalry, taunting

This video depicts a yearling male taunting his two-year-old sister with an unusual technique he picked up from his mother. Coyotes learn by observing and imitating, which is definitely what went on here. The only coyote I know who regularly uses this body-blow method for discipline or fighting, is these coyotes’ mother who has used it at various times towards her daughter, this same two-year-old sister. The yearling male obviously picked it up from her by watching and imitating her, and in this video he bangs his sister tauntingly and mercilessly with this new-found skill. He is doing it simply to bully and harass her.

What led to this is that older sister for a while attempted dominating younger brother and got rather aggressive in doing so. This may be because younger brother had the habit of following big sister around and imitating her, and as he did so, he would get in her way. So Sister reacted. Soon, Mom interfered and forbade daughter from any aggression towards her younger brother. If Sister showed any aggression towards younger brother, Mom would interfere with an aggressive put-down towards the daughter. The result was that younger brother became more and more taunting, and the daughter had no recourse except to put up with it, which she is doing here, as he practices and perfects his body-blow technique on her.

Interestingly, he’s the one who ended up dispersing, of his own volition, at a year-and-a-half of age, whereas she is still part of her birth family.

In Harmony

12 Nov 2018 5 Comments

by yipps:janetkessler in affection, communication, coyote behavior, coyote fun, coyote happy, greetings, social animals Tags: , , ,

In this posting, I want to show the amazingly joyous tuned-in camaraderie, if you will, that is displayed between these two coyotes. The rapport is fascinating, with the coyotes not only walking side-by-side, constantly looking at each other, and even hunting alongside each other, but in addition, you can see that they are blatantly thrilled with each other’s company! They are in-tune to each other’s moods and intentions, and they both are on the same wavelength as far as their “togetherness” is concerned.

I don’t remember ever watching two adult coyotes getting to know each other like this. In all the pairs I’ve been observing, I either came to an established pair, or siblings became a pair, or a youngster moved into a vacated adult position caused by a death — yes, there is a lot of inbreeding in coyotes, at least in San Francisco. But now I have an opportunity to document coyotes getting to know each other from the word “go”.

The pair just met a couple of months ago when the dispersing 1.5 year-old male appeared on the doorstep (footpath?) of the 3.5 year-old loner female’s territory: she had been living all alone there for three years, so this has been a huge change for her.  She welcomed him right from the start. From the beginning there was a lot of eye-contact, and snout-touches, but initially there was also tentativeness and carefulness which over the weeks has morphed into uninhibited displays of “oneness” and affection as trust has grown.

Eye-to-eye contact as they walk along: there’s rapport, harmony and they are in-tune

The photos show the magnetic draw between these two through their warmth and enthusiastic reaching out for contact and even play-bites: these are “I like you” gestures. As an observer, I actually feel their affectionate engagement between them.

Eye to eye joy and zeroing in on each other

Meeting “that special friend” is something most of us can relate to! My next posting about these two will be about their “checking in” with each other after a short period of being apart, with teasing and fun between them, which are what coyotes use to show each other how much they like each other, and how at-ease they are with one another.

Reaching towards the other with a little snout hug

Almost walking arm-in-arm

An affectionate gentle snout-bite as they walk along

Stopping for a short grooming — he’s picking a bug off her coat

Allowing him to share her “find”.

Leaning into each other for an affectionate face rub

Getting to know you,
Getting to know all about you.
Getting to like you,
Getting to hope you like me.

Coyote Communication: An Example

07 Nov 2018 2 Comments

by yipps:janetkessler in blatant visual message, communication, coyote behavior Tags:

Coyotes communicate constantly through eye-contact, as I’ve written about many times. The communication can become stronger with an intense gaze or stare, and the communication can turn physical, for emphasis. I’ve seen females prod or poke their mates either with a paw or their snouts, or even push with their forelegs and entire bodies, to get the other coyote to do something. I’ve given some “proding” examples previously in Intruder: Territorial Fighting (slide #30), and Pestering. 

The injured male insisted on remaining out in the open and visible (he has been primed by human feeders and befrienders to hang around — note we are working on eliminating this human behavior), whereas it appears that his mate’s instincts were telling her that being exposed out in the open wasn’t such a good idea. Coyotes do watch out for each other. HE did not seem to agree with her wisdom and resisted her. She persisted in upping her communication intensity, causing him a lot of anguish and uneasiness which can be read in his tense body stance and movements.

This series of photos shows a progression in intensity of communication between a protective female mate and her resistant, injured male “better-half”.

[Click on each series-of-four to enlarge and run through them as a slide-show]

The female begins her communication to the injured male (above) by simply making him aware that she’s there: she walks over and lies down close by under the bushes where she is somewhat hidden but “present”.  He must have sensed her gaze from that distance. I missed the signal, but before she even gets up to approach him, he bolts up guardedly and looks in her direction: has she emitted a sound that has alerted him to her intentions?

Next (above) she approaches him decisively, places herself directly in front of him, only inches away, and looks at him razor-sharply in the eye. She holds that gaze for many seconds. The gaze breaks for a second, but then recommences closer and more intense than before, and she gives him a little tweak of the nose — first with a nose-lick and then a nose-nip. He squeals in pain and moves away from her mouth, standing erectly and guardedly.

When she begins turning her head in his direction again, he lunges away. When she looks at him again he returns a pained and uneasy look — it’s his muzzle that has been injured (above).

She seems to understand and now uses her paws to push/prod him to get going, and then gives him a whole body push. He responds by distancing himself from her. She approaches him again (above).

After more of the same, he relents, and she finally is able to lead him away, reluctantly at first, but he does follow, tarrying a little and resisting by sniffing as they move along, and eventually stepping in line with her, until they both disappear into the underbrush.

[I spend my time observing and documenting coyote behavior and then writing and posting about them, in order to show people what they are really like. Mine are all first-hand observations, made on my own, usually about family life, which you can’t find much about beyond a few photos of pups on the internet. I get into what is actually going on. I’m a self-taught naturalist who is in the field many hours every day. I don’t know of any academics who are doing this, so this information is not available elsewhere. Hope you enjoy it, learn from it, and then embrace coyotes for who they really are! Janet]

Neighbors In The Night, by Vanitha Sankaran at Pacifica Magazine

02 Nov 2018 7 Comments

by yipps:janetkessler in newsprint Tags: , , ,

When asked about the personality of coyotes, Kessler lights up. “Your average coyote is intelligent, curious, playful, protective, adventurous, cunning, independent, self-reliant, has family values and a frontier spirit, and strong individuality. Those are the same rugged frontier characteristics we value in ourselves.”

Writer Vanitha Sankaran from Pacifica Magazine recently contacted me requesting an interview and photos of coyotes for an article she wanted to do. Coyotes were being sighted more frequently in Pacifica, so it was an opportune time to get some information out to the public. I was, of course, happy to do this.

Here is her article, capturing how and why my passion began and grew as I discovered the extent of individual coyote personalities and the profusion of family interactive behaviors, along with the simplest basic guidelines for coexistence. Reproduction of the photos appear a little grainy in these online versions, but that several depict strong social interactions is very clear.

Hopefully the article will help open the door to recognizing that there are commonalities between species vs. “denying these similarities because we’ve been told that animals couldn’t possibly have qualities or social drives that humans have”. Recognizing a kind of parallelism will help you relate to them better, and help you possibly appreciate who they really are.

Feedback I’ve been getting: The writeup is fun and informative! :))  I’ve included the above embedded copy of the article from Pacifica’s website, and a link to a PDF version, below, which might be easier to read.
PDF version: P_NOV2018-web