Puppy Watch – No Sightings, by Charles Wood

27 May 2012 2 Comments

by yipps:janetkessler in "home", avoiding humans, coyote behavior, coyote living areas, coyotes and dogs, dog reactions to coyotes, evading, territoriality

Here in Los Angeles County my coyotes see me before I see them. Once I noticed Mom in the distance observing me. Once I looked up to see a yearling watching me. Dad also kept the pressure on me, seeing me first about every other day. I received their attention despite trying a new tactic.

Typically I walk east to get to watching places. Saturday I instead went north along the eastern boundary of my coyotes’ field. Along the east is a fenced off structure that has only a couple places where I can see into their field. Unfortunately, they too can see me.

I hoped they wouldn’t see me. As I happily walked, Holtz was ahead of me. Then he turned to come back. Immediately he started adversarially stalking towards something to my rear. Holtz’s head was slung low, protruding with his tough guy gaze fixed on the other side of the fence. I grabbed him and turned around. I expected to see a dog with a walker. I saw nothing. It must have been a coyote, no doubt one of mine that had been tailing us. Compared to a few months ago, my coyotes are visible and active.

Coyotes with puppies are more active for a couple of reasons. First, they are alert for interlopers. Coyotes hide and protect their young and are vigilant for all possible dangers. Also, they hunt more for having more mouths to feed. Fortunately for coyotes, nature provides them with more to hunt during spring.

This time of year, my coyotes’ rabbits also produce offspring. Controlling rabbit populations is an important coyote job. Young rabbits are easier to catch than adult rabbits, and I imagine that in good years there are lots of them for adult and child coyote alike. The richness of vegetation from good rains provides more cover for rabbit nests. Rabbit nests would be fairly easy for a foraging a coyote puppy to find all on its own. Yet the coyotes and other predators don’t find all the nests. One reason they don’t is that adult rabbits make themselves conspicuous this time of year, acting as fast running decoys that lead predators away from their nests. Dense ground cover with a bumper rabbit crop in their field is an excellent incentive for my coyotes to remain in their field.

A balance between predators and rabbits protects the field itself from a being overgrazed by rabbits. Fifteen years ago, when I would only see foxes, rabbits were a problem down river at Leisure World which suffered from a rabbit invasion. I suspect that since the coming of coyotes, that invasion silently went away along with the foxes.

Two Take To A Street

12 May 2012 Leave a comment

by yipps:janetkessler in coyote behavior, territoriality, trekking

When I passed these two at daybreak, they were already headed somewhere — there was purpose in their gait.  I followed, thinking that this might evolve into an adventure, and it did, sort of. You might ask, why do coyotes trek? The simplest answer is that they need to get from point A to point B. But also, they mark the periphery of their territories, and while doing so they are scouting for what is going on and where food might be. They also go out hunting. Longer treks might be about finding a mate and ultimately dispersal, which is when the pups leave home for good to seek their fortune elsewhere, usually between the ages of one and three. Territories vary vastly in size, but two to six miles is not unusual. That coyotes sometimes take city streets is normal coyote behavior — they usually do this at times of the day/night when few people are out and about since they desperately want to avoid all encounters.

So, today the fellow was in the lead and they were going somewhere — they had a determined pace. I followed at a brisk pace, with spurts of running to keep up. I’ve seen coyotes walk purposefully this way many times on their way to “dog watch”, where they sit on a little knoll in the distance to watch the string of dog walkers, or to get to a hunting spot. Their pace is more casual when they return from such outings.

This time, instead of stopping at one of their little knolls or grassy areas within the park, or taking a park path, they took the street.  They did not enter the street tentatively, but went right to the middle of it and then moved off to the side, alternating between the shrub/tree area set back from the sidewalk, the sidewalk and the street itself as they moved steadily forward. The female looked as though she was an old hand at negotiating this street stuff. She maintained an even pace, with periodic but regular stops to sniff, pee or hunt along the way. When she needed to hide because of startling/loud noises or car activity, she moved slowly and stealthily towards bushes or trees and remained still: if a person had been around to glimpse her, they might have wondered if it was just their imagination because she quietly and suddenly was no longer there. The fellow was different. To me, he looked as though he were new to trekking on the streets. Although he knew how to hide behind things, he was clumsy, he spooked at all sounds and sudden movements — such as cars passing, though there were not many — he ran, darted and his pace was nervous and erratic. He spent more time looking around, whereas she seemed to take it all in as she moved along.

When the  natural grassy/tree strip narrowed itself out of existence  — the setback buildings no longer were set back from the street — rather than continue on the sidewalk, the nervous coyote ran up the middle of the street for several blocks — he was tense, erratic, alert and fast. He disappeared from my view. I could not keep up, and besides, I could only follow one of the coyotes since they were now separated. So I returned and kept an eye on the calmer female as she continued on the sidewalk behind parked cars for a while. She, too, had lost track of the other coyote and no longer looked for him. As she walked, she stopped to lap up water from the curb, hid behind parked cars, sniffed and marked in the street next to a parked car, walked casually by a vacant bus stop, and then finally disappeared behind a large patch of shrubbery through which I could no longer follow.

Who’s With The Kids, Mom – by Charles Wood

08 May 2012 Leave a comment

by yipps:janetkessler in coyote behavior, pupping, territoriality

Here in LA County Monday I saw Mom. I hadn’t sighted her for three weeks. My two dogs were with me.

The video shows Mom standing at an entrance to her den area. The puppies are still too young to be out. No doubt her helpers were busy with the puppies somewhere in the thick brush behind her. Mom’s body language was informative.

Mom was not relaxed and was in a predicament. She couldn’t immediately leave because her puppies were nearby and we were a potential threat. Yet she was outnumbered and felt she couldn’t assert herself, either by facing us, by making direct eye contact, or both. On the other hand, she couldn’t look away, couldn’t show vulnerability. Consequently she half looked at us. Her left rear leg, closest to us, was cocked and ready for action. Her body language said concurrently “Don’t come here” and “I’m not coming there.” She may not look particularly courageous, but she definitely is.

I was standing when I took the video. When done, I sat down. Mom left a few moments later, having read me correctly as not opposing her. My dogs and I left to stand and watch at a the rendezvous spot.

Dad showed there twelve minutes later. He stood still and made some direct eye contact. I made the dogs lie down. Once they were down, Dad sat. He didn’t get up again until I made the dogs get up to leave. When the dogs rose, so did Dad.

At issue between my dogs and both coyotes was contact. The coyotes didn’t want contact. They wanted us to go away.

As an aside, I’ve been seeing lots of rabbits lately. About ten minutes before Mom showed Monday, two rabbits, as is their habit, scurried around on the road and went into the brush near where Mom later stood. Similarly in the rendezvous area, a few rabbits bound around. Yet rabbit movement doesn’t appear to be tied to the coming or going of my coyotes. When I see rabbits moving around in the open at dusk, in areas my coyotes come every day at that time, I shake my head and wonder about rabbit minds. Still, I’ve never seen my coyotes bother any of those frisky rabbits at dusk.

Dad

A year ago, a pet black rabbit was abandoned in the park near my coyotes’ home. I’ve seen my coyotes close to where that black rabbit resides. A year ago, thinking myself wise, I gave the rabbit two weeks tops. It was sad that the coyotes would take it, I thought, and contemplated nature’s hard ways. I was wrong. I see the black rabbit most days when I go see my coyotes, saw it a few days ago and it is fine.

Let’s Go a-Marking!

07 May 2012 Leave a comment

by yipps:janetkessler in coyote behavior, evading, marking, territoriality, territoriality

I watched a coyote pair as they made their “rounds” recently. The hour-long outing can best be characterized as: “Let’s go a-marking!”

Each coyote “outing” or “trekking expedition” has a different purpose, it seems. I’ve seen coyotes go hunting and go observing. This time, their purpose was definitely “let’s go a-marking.”

I came upon the pair early — curled up as little fur balls in an open field. They watched me but stayed where they were for about 5 minutes.

Then, one got up and trotted off. When he came to a rock, he climbed up to look back at the other coyote. She had not budged — maybe she wasn’t coming?  He continued down a trail. I noted where he went and returned to observe the female who had remained behind. She eventually got up and stretched — slowly and deliberately — and then disappeared down a ravine, where I could no longer see or follow her. She had not gone in the same direction that the first one went.

So I hurried along the trail taken by the first coyote, the male, and I caught up with him just as the female emerged from some bushes and  joined him. They came together in an area that was a congregating place for dogs. Both coyotes began meandering about, sniffing out the area and urinating/marking wherever they found  a smell, which was everywhere. Occasionally one would watch the other or they would look at each other: they were in sync about this purposeful “marking”.

When this job was completed, they looked at each other, reading each other’s cues, and then began trotting down a path away from the area. The coyotes had not gone far, when, over the crest of a hill, there appeared a runner with his small leashed dog. The coyotes quickly skedaddled off the path into hiding. The runner saw them and ignored them and continued his run. But the coyotes did not ignore him and his dog — they had been unexpectedly surprised by him. It seemed that now they wanted to be more careful, so they watched. They also, repeatedly, exchanged glances with each other — this is their way of communicating and gathering as much information about how the other was reacting to the situation. And then they moved to an even more hidden area behind bushes where they sat or lay down for a while. Not until ten minutes had elapsed did they slowly venture back to the dog area. The male coyote was bolder than the female about this. He went first, sniffed around and urinated some more, this time on a tennis ball. The female then descended from her hiding place and did the same.

Slowly the duo moved in a new direction, up a hill with no path. They kept looking at each other — they were constantly in tune to the subtle cues of danger or boldness from the other. Again, the male went first. The female followed, stopping for a sip of water on the way. While up on the hillside another walker with an unleashed dog began walking by. The owner saw the coyotes and leashed his dog immediately. The coyotes were far enough away so that they did not flee, but they stood very still and watched quietly until the dog and walker had moved on. They then continued their trek up the hill. One of them headed to a high rock for a sweeping look around. The female went to a much lower rock where she curled up comfortably to watch the activity below. There was almost no activity.

This inactivity didn’t last long because another unexpected runner, no dog this time, came around a bend close enough to make the coyotes bolt up and run off, out of view. The runner was pleased to have seen them — excited that she had seen two coyotes. When she was out of sight, both coyotes reappeared, began sniffing and urinating as before, and then continued their trek up the hill until a large group of dogs and walkers could be seen approaching in the distance. The female disappeared into the brush quickly, but the male went up to a little knoll and sat down to watch this group from the distance. While he was there, he became distracted by a flower and ate it, all the time watching the dogs with their walkers who were also very interested in the coyote: there was mutual curiosity and respect.

When the coast had been clear for a while, this coyote descended the hill, and that is when the female reappeared and again joined him. They both sniffed and marked a number of times in various places. Sometimes the female would mark, and the male would immediately smell and mark the same spot right after her.

They continued their descent, stopping to view a few dog walkers in the far distance, and stopping to sniff and mark on their way. They ended their outing by heading into a thicket. I knew I would not see them any more that day.

When the Cats Are Away….

06 Mar 2012 Leave a comment

by yipps:janetkessler in coyote behavior, exploring, interloper, territoriality

In each of the parks I frequent, I always see the same coyotes. These coyotes claim their territories, keeping other coyotes, for the most part, out. But the coyotes also engage in excursions to other areas, and I’m not sure what their claim is to these other areas — are they just interlopers?  When they make these excursions — and who knows what they go checking out or why — they are not at home to oversee their own territory. Hmmm….

So, today, the resident coyotes in one of the parks were gone. And…. the “intruder” took it upon herself to roam and explore their home territory in their absence. This is the most I’ve ever seen of her. She did a lot of sniffing and roaming, and she fled quickly from a couple of walkers who saw her. But, interestingly, although I found one small piece of scat on a trail before I became aware of her — and I have no idea if it was hers, I did not see this intruder coyote “mark” at all as she explored. Was she avoiding leaving her scent? Exploring coyote behavior is a voyage of discovery for me, too, and very fascinating!

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