Coyote Yipps

Sometimes coyotes wait and watch patiently — hoping to see the little critter they are after before pouncing on it. Sometimes coyotes wait and listen before pouncing — the prey is too deep underground to be seen. A coyote’s hearing is so keen that he can tell where the critter is deep within its burrow. If the critter never comes close enough to the surface for the coyote to pounce on, the coyote will begin to dig. Here is a coyote engaged in a one-paw careful and slow dig. The coyote then engaged in a two-paw dig — a much more intense dig, where he was balanced on his hind legs, his back was arched high, and both forelegs were used sequentially to enlarge the opening of the burrow, with very fast digging. The last picture in this series shows the coyote thrusting its nose deep into the burrow for a last-ditch attempt at grabbing its prey. There was no prize after this series of photos.

By tilting its head back and forth and cocking its ears, a coyote is able to tell exactly where its prey is under the ground in its burrow. A coyote will listen intently and wait patiently, and when it hears its prey come to the surface, it will disable it with one sharp blow. I’m not sure exactly how this is accomplished, but after the initial “blow”, the coyote relaxes somewhat, knowing that the prey is his.

These two coyotes were rustling in the bushes and very excited when I happened upon them. They kept scurrying back and forth and up and down in the same area, noses to the ground. Then suddenly a black creature whizzed passed them, and me, at full speed and up to the very top of a tree branch. I thought I had seen a black cat, but it was too small and a cat was unlikely to be in this part of the woods.  Soon I was able to see that it was a black squirrel! I had never seen a black squirrel before.

The coyotes went into hot pursuit, but, as usual, they were no match for the squirrel. The squirrel must have known he was safe perched high above the ground. He complained bitterly and loudly, thrusting his tail tensely back and forth. The coyotes paced a little and eyed the squirrel for some time from below. Eventually they gave up — they would not be able to reach the squirrel. One coyote sauntered off, but the other coyote lay down in forlorn resignation a few feet away for about ten minutes.  This is when the squirrel stopped its angry chattering and its tail movements, and became absolutely frozen and still. The second coyote then departed, but the squirrel remained frozen for long after both coyotes had gone. Only once have I seen a coyote with a captured squirrel, and this was a small young one that may have been injured or may have fallen out of its nest.

I have the impression that for coyotes, at least for well-fed coyotes, the activity of hunting borders on play: the excitement, novelty, adventure and amusement of a hunt are as compelling as the reward at the end of having captured something. This would explain why coyotes continually chase squirrels they can’t catch, or sometimes discard rodents after they capture them.

Among the rodents that coyotes catch and eat are rats. Rats tend to be large in this area. They cannot be crunched down and swallowed whole as are the voles. They must be torn apart. Today this coyote was working on a large rat. The rat had only been eaten part-way when the coyote moved forwards and urinated on it, marking it as its own. But then, interestingly, the coyote snarled and moved a short distance where it scratched the ground — something I’ve only seen before as a sign of dominance when a dog is around. I wonder what this behavior meant here. The rat was moved and eaten some more before the coyote licked its chops and wandered off, leaving a half-eaten rat, to which it may return at a later time.

I didn’t see who killed the bird yet it is clearly being eaten by a young coyote.  Several contentious hawks were flying over the field and one may have ceded its kill to the coyote.  The coyote was too engrossed in dining to notice me until I began to use flash.  Then it hid briefly only to return to its meal.  Most of the bird was consumed and I was tempted to enter the field and identify it from what remained.  Yet I wasn’t interested enough to brave an encounter with Dad at dusk in his field.

As I walked towards the street to the north, I heard Dad’s antics close to the chain link fence that separates the river bed from their field.  My dog, Holtz, was leashed yet still managed to charge the fence.  Dad stood his ground while Holtz repeatedly barked at him.  Dad did not vocalize.  I quickly reigned in Holtz and quieted him down.  In late dusk I use a flashlight to aid my camera’s autofocus.  Lit, Dad decided to continue on his way.  I last saw him headed north.  I went to the bridge to look south for Dad.  I didn’t see him or any of the other coyotes.

Back at the river bed I conversed with a homeless man while continuing to watch for coyotes.  None showed and on my walk back to my car I did not hear yipping as I had the night before.

It seems to me that although Dad still displays dissatisfaction at my presence, he isn’t as driven to chase me off.  I’m inclined to attribute his less aggressive displays to the fact that his family has grown in stature, independence and wariness.  They are young coyotes now, no longer pups.

Posting written by Charles Wood. Visit Charles Wood’s website for these and more coyote photos: Charles Wood. His work is copyrighted and may only be used with his explicit permission.

In the Bay Area, the unusual weather pattern has produced a bumper crop of voles. I saw this coyote pick up three voles in a row — by the time one was chewed and had gone down the hatch, the coyote had only to look down at the ground to grab its next one: it was like picking fruit off of a tree. The chewing process involves a point at which the coyote needs to a crush hard — the effort often causes them the squnch up their faces and close their eyes.

As we have found out, and are now being taught, it is always a good idea to attempt to fight your attacker off: this has proven to be very effective for humans who have been ambushed by mountain lions. Well, today I saw a little vole take the one-second chance he was given, to flip out of the coyote’s toothsome grasp. The lucky vole fell right next to a burrow opening, and down it scurried, deeply, not to be found again by this coyote: notice the coyote is sticking its nose as far down as possible into the vole’s burrow in the 6th photo.

This year there appears to be a huge bumper-crop of voles. I have never seen so many voles darting across the pathways in front of me as I walked in a park: I have seen 3-6 at once scurrying around within a blink of the eye. I watched a vole sit only 5 feet from me, either totally unconcerned or oblivious. When I got to within 2 feet of it, I wondered if blindness could be involved — but just then the vole scurried down a vole hole. We have not seen this type of vole behavior before. The rain pattern is quite different each year in this area. This year we had regular rain consistently for several months, whereas more typical would have been extreme rains with dry spells in-between. The regular rains this year helped plants proliferate which might not have otherwise. With the abundance of plants, the voles went to work reproducing: the signals from nature were that it would be one of plant abundance. But the rains stopped, and most of the foliage dried up, leaving a plethora of voles with a minimal amount of food to live on. So instead of remaining hidden in their burrows or in tall grasses, they have come out to the open to search for what they can. It is these voles that are feeding our coyotes so well.

The coyote has found something in this bush that has caught its interest. It appears to be snails that have maneuvered their way up. Especially on damp days, snails can be found high off the ground on almost all types of growth. It looks like the coyote carefully “picked” the first snail off the tree and thrust to the ground before picking it up again and swallowing it whole. The coyote then continued its search and seems to have found more, but these next ones were not thrust to the ground — just swallowed.

I went back to check out the snails later — the bush is California poison oak. The bush was absolutely “swarming” with snails, as you can see from the bottom row of photos. Mmmm, escargot!

Voles are prolific in the parks right now. As one walks along the paths, these little critters will dart across in front of you. Most of them are very fast so that all you see is dark shadows. But sometimes one will sit there, and you know his time will be up soon.

Hawks, owls, ravens, crows, and coyotes eat the voles, keeping the vole population under control.

I recently saw more hunting activity by a coyote. Although I have always seen a coyote “spot” its prey, today the coyote seemed to “sniff” out the vole.  When it found the right spot it began digging furiously. Finally it jumped up and dove head first for the incapacitating blow. There was a short “tossing” of and “toying” with the vole by the coyote.  In these photos the vole seems to stand up to the coyote, even though there is no chance for him, and the coyote actually seems interested in the vole as a “being” for a few seconds before eating him. Afterwards, the coyote went to the spot where it had caught the vole and urinated there. The coyote also smacked its lips — a gesture which often involves a communication beyond “just smacking its lips.” Just observations.