The start of any of my observation sessions involves always identifying WHO the coyote is that I’m watching. I use their faces to identify them because their coats not only change over the seasons as they shed and grow, but they also appear different under different lighting and weather conditions. Once I have their identity down, I of course can relate any behaviors I see to what I already know about the coyote.
To begin with, the coyote I began watching was facing away so I couldn’t positively identify him when I started. From his general shape I initially assumed he was the alpha male of the family that lived in this location. Several times he gave me a profile view, but that resulted in more questions than answers. And then I saw his face straight on and his light eyes: no, this was definitely not one of the coyotes who lived here — it was an intruder!
The coyote we saw faced away from us. When he finally looked over at us, we could see that this indeed was an intruder, not part of the resident family.
Coyotes are allowed to briefly pass through claimed territories without incident if they do so quickly, without challenging the resident coyotes. Intruders have been rare in this particular territory. Maybe there have been as many as five in this one territory in the entire time I’ve been observing — over the past 16 years — so it was actually special and exciting to see him there! A friend of mine and I watched intently. The coyote remained in the one location we had found him, standing most of the time, and then finally sitting down, always facing away from us.
While he sat there, the resident family began to howl. Were they aware of him? I don’t really know if the howling was related to him: it was not particularly intense or threatening, as far as I could hear. I took a short blurry video and have included that so that you can hear the family vocalizations and the intruder’s lack of vocal response. Although he remained quiet and did not respond to their howls, he was picking up as many signals as he could about the situation, and you can be sure that he was indeed reacting internally. The video is blurry because the camera automatically focused on the long surrounding grasses, but the important point is to hear the vocalizations, and see that this outsider listened intently. If he were part of the family he most likely would have responded. When the howling stopped, he slowly got up and began moving away from the area.
Walking away while continually looking over his shoulder to where the howling had come from.
We followed him for a short distance as he headed slowly, deliberately and decisively out of the park, but then we turned back — we didn’t want to interfere at all with his exit, we already knew he was headed out. We returned to where we had originally been, and within minutes both the resident alpha male and the alpha female rushed over close to where that intruder had been. And they too, faced the direction where they had been howling from, never actually going to the intruder’s exact spot. I suppose they will discover and explore that later. Probably their strong olfactory equipment had already let them know that the intruder had departed. They did not try to pursue him: it’s to coyote’s benefit not to engage in a fight which might injure them enough to prevent survival.
Mom and Dad rush over (top two photos) and remained in an anxious state of alert (bottom photo). Possibly they were keeping their eyes on where they knew the pups were.
After the very palpable bulk of tension had subsided, the alpha male wandered to the family’s rendezvous spot, but a youngster there must have sensed the tension because he remained on his back even though his dad was a substantial distance away. I suppose the family will be on higher alert for the next little while.
I’ve seen a number of intruders throughout San Francisco in the 16+ years I’ve been observing, and in each, something what I saw was a little different. I’ve seen an intruder simply turn and leave shortly after coming into a foreign territory and finding out what the situation was by sniffing — the resident family, as far as I could tell, did not even know he was there, though they probably sniffed his presence at a later time. And I’ve also watched territorial claimants hotly pursue intruders and even viciously attack in their effort to get that intruder to leave.
This time, we heard an intruder react to territorial vocalizations by quietly leaving, and the family react anxiously. Maybe the family saw him leave and knew he wouldn’t be coming back — there’s no reason for a fight here. Fighting happens only when one side won’t back down: you might recall Scout’s plight [search *Scout* if you are interested]. Other examples of intrusions can be found by typing in *intruder* into the blog’s search box.
The Intruder today looked like he was 2 or 3 years old — he would have been looking for a territory and a mate. Just like for humans, life’s various transitions for some coyotes are smooth and seamless, and for others there is much more effort and uncertainty as they search for openings and opportunities to improve their situations, and ultimately find themselves. I think this is a good way to look at their lives: as very parallel to our own.
