Everything I Know About Coyotes Without Looking Anything Up

Photo from here.

It’s January and I’ve been seeing the coyotes, so I thought of this old post. The original posting had 15 comments with coyote stories. Everyone, it seems, has one. What’s yours?

I’ve been thinking that I should write a blog post about coyotes, so in preparation, I started doing a little research. I can sum up all the material I found in one word: boring. And coyotes—for those who’ve had no coyote encounters and might not know—are not boring. Here, then, is the plan: Phfft! to all the reference articles, and forward ho! without them.

Let’s talk first about what we call these wild dogs. Did you know that they have them in northern Minnesota where I grew up, but they don’t call them coyotes? They call them brush wolves. Old farmers there will tell you that northern Minnesota has no coyotes, only timber wolves and brush wolves, but a coyote by any other name is still a coyote. What’s more, even when we agree that the word coyote is their proper name, we may not agree on how to pronounce it. My dad, a Kansas farm kid turned Colorado cowboy, calls them ky-oats (first syllable rhymes with sky, second syllable with porridge, accent on the first syllable), but in the Yukon and almost everywhere else, they’re called ky-oat-tees (sky, porridge, type of shirt, accent on the second syllable). My dad always told me that only silly sissified city folk called them ky-oat-tees, but I’ve since learned that this is not completely accurate.

Here where I live, now is the time of year when we are most likely to have coyotes right around our homes. Food is more scarce in the bush during the dead of winter, so coyotes come to town to wander the streets looking for tasty garbage or available small pets. Several years ago, on a forty below day, I walked to my local elementary school to do some reading with students. As I approached the school, I noticed a coyote digging through the garbage can right next to the main entrance of the school. He saw me, grabbed a full lunch bag in his mouth and trotted off. Lately we’ve had a coyote strolling the street in front of our house, and I suspect that when the garbage can beside the house was overturned and the remains our yummy food garbage spread down the driveway, across the street, and on into the bush, it was coyote work.

The small pet thing is the reason we don’t let our cat Leroy outside except by mistake. Sure he’s sixteen pound of pure muscle and afraid of nothing—some of the local big dogs have lost fights with him—but he’s no roadrunner. Neither was our previous dog, an old, deaf, lame Samoyed, who had his own won’t-you-be-my-dinner run-in with coyotes.

Here’s the story, but I’ll give you fair warning: The dog doesn’t die in the end, so this one won’t win a Newbery Medal for children’s literature. On a January morning several years ago, I left the gate open while fetching something from the garage. The dog wandered out, as he often did, and I thought nothing much of it. He’d often go down the street a bit, greet anyone out and about, and make his way home again. No worry, right? But that day something bothered me and I went out to fetch him just in time to see him loping off into the bush after a coyote. Then I saw the second coyote fold in behind from out of nowhere and I knew our old dog was a goner. He was deaf, remember, so calling him back to me was useless. But he turned, glanced back and saw me, and I motioned for him to come. For once in his life, he obeyed on command, and it saved his live.

Part of what makes coyotes so interesting is that they’re not especially frightened of us. Perhaps that’s why they’ve adapted so well—perhaps too well—to the spread of civilization. Every few years, someone here in Whitehorse has a run-in with a coyote. I don’t think anyone’s been bitten, but if I remember correctly, a woman carrying a bag of groceries had one tug on her clothing with his teeth. I suspect he was more interested in eating her groceries than eating her, but I’m not volunteering to be the guinea pig to test out my hypothesis.

Not only are coyotes not scared of us, but they can be interested in what we’re doing. A few days ago, oldest son was whistling a tune in the house while the friendly neighbourhood coyote was traipsing by. The coyote stopped in front of the house, looked toward the window, cocked his head and listened for 15 seconds or so before he went on his way. What do you suppose he was thinking?

Sometimes, if you howl outside at night, the coyotes will howl back. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you’ve tricked them and they think you’re just another coyote. They know who you are, and we know this because coyote howls responding to humans are less complex than howls responding to other coyotes. They know who we are and they’re dumbing it down for us.

One last thing I’ve noticed about coyotes is that, for the most part, they are wild dogs on a mission. When you take your family dog for a walk unleashed, she probably darts here and there, sniffing this and that. Not so with the coyote. Coyotes do not stop to smell the roses and only pause briefly to hear the whistling. Once or twice, I’ve seen a pair of coyotes romping around, but most often, they are traveling in a bee-line to wherever it is they are going. They are business travelers only and workaholics. Do you think that’s the key to their success?

Serendipitous morsel: Today’s final jeopardy answer was, “The middle initial for this 1949 movie critter stands for Ethelbert.” Do you know the question?

And while we’re at it, do you have a coyote tidbit or story to share? No reference material allowed!

Down the River with a Paddle

This morning I saw one of this blog’s readers off at the start of the Yukon 1000 Canoe and Kayak Race. Kerry is the Amish looking fellow on the left and at the back of the voyageur canoe above.

Kerry and his wife are the only blog readers previously unknown to me that I’ve met in real life. This is the third year in a row that Kerry has driven from New York to race his canoe in a Yukon long-distance race. This year he’s decided to enter the brand new really long one, the one advertised as “the longest canoe and kayak race in the world.”

Kerry may look Amish—and his hat is indeed an Amish one—but he attends a small Orthodox Presbyterian Church back in his hometown.

Fishing for Juveniles (and Adults, Too)

There are at least a couple of juvenile bald eagles—and grown up eagles, too—hanging around down by the river where I sometimes take my daily walks. Last week, while walking with a friend, we saw one juvenile sitting on the river edge very close to the walkway on the bank. He was, I think, hoping to catch himself a fish, but he left when a small crowd gathered to watch. Fishing, you know, is not a spectator sport.

And on my way home later, I saw two or three juveniles—I think there were three, but I was driving and had to pay attention to the road, too—sitting out in the middle of the river on a sandbar. If I’d had my camera, I’d have stopped to take a photo for you, but I hadn’t yet retrieved it from oldest son.

Do you know what a juvenile bald eagle looks like? Here’s a very short (16 seconds) YouTube video of one eating a salmon.

It takes five years for a bald eagle to get its full adult markings, so they reach full adult size before they get their adult feathering. (If I were a bird nerd, I’d call it plumage.) The one in the video looks to be largish and the ones I saw certainly were. Adult size for an eagle is pretty big, at least as far as bird go—around three feet tall for the girls and a few inches shorter for the boys. Wing span? Six or seven feet, and here the girls excel as well. Eagle men, I guess, prefer big women.

A few years ago, I told a story of how the eagle got her fish. (I never did get around to telling the wedding story I mentioned in that post, but sadly, the marriage has already gone kaput, so I hope you didn’t hold your breath waiting to hear that one.)