Natural History

The tracks tell the tale of two coyotes in the night.

There were two sets of tracks in the snow.  They came from different directions, but at one point the two sets of tracks intersected.

I can only assume that the two coyotes fought or mated here.

The snow was really torn up at this meeting place. I like to hope it was the latter.

February is the month of madness. This is when the normally paranoid coyotes become a little less paranoid and do silly things like copulate out in the open and jump golden retrievers in the dark.

I recently purchased a diaphragm howling call for coyotes, but I have had no luck in getting them to respond to my howls– until this weekend.

I was standing on a ridge-top in heavy timber, when I let loose a few howls and a yip-howl. It was just starting to get dark, and the sun was casting pink shades on the snow. Out of the gloomy hollow before me the rose the wild dog song.

It sounded like there were two. A deeper voiced dog and higher-pitched bitch.

They carried on for no more than a minute, and then there was silence.

But for a brief moment, I’d made a connection with these truly wild beings. Though almost  dogs, they are distinctly not dogs.  Where the dog lives in such intimacy with humans, the coyote lives on the edge of our existence. It is a creature of the fleeting glimpse and the midnight slink.

A coyote is a dog undominated, unowned.

It lives in spite our desires.

And that is why people hate them.