Coyote Yipps

Owlet by Courtney Quirin

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I’m really taken with Courtney’s wildlife drawings. She captures the Great Horned owlet’s character so wonderfully here!

Thank you Courtney for another great sketch!

Courtney Quirin has allowed me to post a couple of her wonderful sketches. These charcoal drawings capture the special personality and character of coyotes in a way that my photos and my behavior descriptions cannot. Thank you, Courtney! Courtney is an artist, an ecologist who has worked in Ethiopia, and an All American runner, to list just a few of her talents.  San Francisco is her new home where we embrace and welcome her!

We just returned from seeing the movie BUCK, a documentary about a horse trainer, Buck Brannaman. Yes, I, too, have loved horses throughout my life — and that is why I was drawn to this film, but the movie’s message can be read to include much more than just horses. It shows the sensitivity, understanding and respect that we can encompass in our dealings with all animals. There are a few individuals out there who truly understand animals and who can relate to them absolutely. With horses, that person is Buck Brannaman — he is a “horse-whisperer”.

He emerged from a violent upbringing with the ability to help people understand where a horse is coming from — and also where they themselves are coming from. He teaches that you can gain a horse’s trust with a soft lead which makes it sensitive and responsive, whereas rough handling only causes it to shut down out of fear. Under his guidance, bucking horses are transformed into trusting creatures that follow their riders’ leads at the slightest pull of the rope — or sometimes even a gesture.

He teaches people to communicate with their horses through leadership and sensitivity, not abusive punishment or put-downs. He says, “I started to realize that things would come much easier for me once I learned why a horse does what he does.” The key is understanding “why” any animal does what it does. Buck learned from Tom Dorrance and Ray Hunt, the developers of “natural horsemanship,” which advocates mutual respect between rider and horse. His approach is as much about people as about horses. “A lot of times, rather than helping people with horse problems, I’m helping horses with people problems.”  “It is about a communion between man and animal that runs deeper than any division”.

Buck dramatically transforms both horses and people – always with his understanding, compassion and respect. By the end of this film, the animal-human relationship becomes a euphemism for facing challenges to life and for facing yourself. “Your horse is a mirror to your soul, and sometimes you may not like what you see. Sometimes, you will.” When you can start seeing yourself through animals, you can start really relating to them, and therefore really understanding them. I feel that I’ve bridged this gap with some of the coyotes I’ve observed.

Victoria Schlesinger is one of the founders of Way Out West News, or WOW. This journal, which covers the environmental news in the Bay Area, is a fairly recent creation which is growing by leaps and bounds. Victoria contacted me about wildlife and my wildlife photography. Please check out the journal, and while you are at it, check out her article and slide show based on our interview:   PDF of WayOutWestNews article of 6/6/2022 “Its a good time of the year to spot urban wildlife”.

I’ve watched coyotes for a long time. They love to raise themselves on a rock at the top of a cliff where they scan in all directions, including down, for any and all activity. They are sentries making their inspections.

We have all seen birds sitting on rocks. But when I saw a bird look in all directions, including far down the cliff edge of the rock, I knew the same thing was happening. And then today, I couldn’t believe as I watched a little brown squirrel head straight for one of the same rocks that many of the other critters use. He scampered to the top, stood up high, and looked in all directions, including over the steep edges to the activity far below, and continued inspecting for many minutes! We humans do the same thing. You know, we really are not so different!

night eyes

This photo was taken just as it was getting dark. If you click on the image to enlarge it, you can count the number of eyes!! Thanks, Allie! I really like this photo. Photo courtesy of Allie Light.

I observed a coyote stop at three distinct spots before it returned to the first spot where it picked up a dead rat. As I’ve seen before, when there is no struggle or effort, I know that the rat was dead. I don’t know if the coyote killed the rat earlier on and left it there, or if the coyote found the rat already dead.  These photos show the coyote giving a hard bite to the head — enough to sever it but not completely.  The head is then pulled off, holding the body down with its forepaw. Hmmm. Now we have a decapitated rat. The coyote then rolled on this — I’ve seen this before, too: coyotes like wallowing on smelly dead animals. The coyote then shook himself out and urinated on the carcass. And then. . . .  wandered off and that was the end of that.

I went to the other two spots where the coyote had stopped and found. . . . two decapitated rats. I have no idea what this is about. It did make me think of the possibility of poisons. Two years ago a dead coyote was found in this same park — we assumed it had been poisoned because a small dog became ill and died of rat poisoning that same week — a dog which had been walked in this park. And not long ago I saw another rat in the throes of dying from rat poisoning in this park. It is a horrible death. Rat poisoning is becoming a sad issue these days, because it not only kills the rat for which it was intended — this is bad enough — but it continues killing up the food chain, including owls, hawks and coyotes. See  Potent new rat poisons killing California wildlife.   [http://www.sacbee.com/2011/04/17/3558267/potent-new-rat-poisons-killing.html]

So, there is a possibility — only a possibility — that this is an acutely perceptive coyote who did not eat a rat because he knew it was poisoned. He urinated on the rats when he checked on them the day before. And he left them all where they were, decapitated. Maybe the decapitation and urinating on them were messages of warning to other coyotes?

These rat remains stayed where they were for a full day.  I was in that same area the next morning. The fog was extremely dense which did not help the quality of my photos. But twice I saw a raven fly down to that very rock and pick something up. My photo shows — barely because of the fog — the raven holding the rat with its long tail. During his first flight the raven must have picked up the separated head. Ravens are scavengers and will eat carrion. Our wild critters have a way of cleaning up the environment for us if we allow them to do so — not our messes, but their messes. I hope the rat was not poisoned — that it might have been was only speculation — and an opportunity to write about that possibility.  I have not seen any dead ravens.

Today I saw the second female youngster who lives with its parents and sister in a small field that that borders one of Los Angeles County’s concrete ‘rivers’.  The sister I saw on March 30 when she was with her father.  I last saw Mom on February22 and I had last seen today’s coyote on January 24.

My leashed dog, Holtz, and I spotted her while we walked north on their road.  When she saw us she fled into the brush.  Yet soon she was out having a look.  Holtz was unwelcoming so I had him lie down.  The coyote sat.  Then she dropped herself down to stare.  Our visit was short.  She followed us as we left.  Near the exit, I scared her away.

Previously I would end such an encounter by slowly walking away.  Recently I read that it is better for a coyote if it retains its natural desire to avoid people.  That is why I scared her away today.

I doubt I will see Mom any time soon and can only assume she is still there.  If so, she should be busy with new puppies very soon, that is, if there are to be any puppies from her this year.  Last year, it was Dad who in June brought out and supervised their seven puppies.  I didn’t see Mom until August.  Last year I didn’t see any year old undispersed coyotes.  This year I am curious about how long the two sisters will remain.

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.

I take photos of wildlife other than coyotes — and I have lots of fun and adventures doing so. I was asked to submit one of my adventures to the website: Golden Gate Park – Views From The Thicket. Take a look if you might be interested:

a wildlife photographer shares twilight adventure in golden gate park

Marc Bekoff, an animal behaviorist who has spent years studying coyotes, has written a couple of revealing short articles in the wake of sensationalist media hype: specifically on a recent National Geographic video which is based on a news item that occurred a year and a half ago and capitalizes on fears and sensationalism. The incident reported is one of only two ever recorded deaths of humans by a coyote. The other incident involved a small child whose father had been feeding coyotes, which is what we suspect may have gone on in this case here. That these deaths occurred is very upsetting, but they are made that much worse by globalizing an incident that is so rare that we only have two recorded incidents of it in the last 500 years.This approach sells, but our respect for National Geographic, which produced the video, has fallen hard. Please see his article and the comments afterwards. Coyotes Are Victims Of Their Own Success and Sensationalist Media.

Also, a recent follow-up: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201102/coyote-fur-prices-rise-steeply-they-are-indeed-victims-sensationalist-me