Coyote in the snow

I live a 10 minute walk from the north end of Mill Creek Ravine Park, so when I need some urban forest trails, that is where I usually go. Occasionally, I see a lone coyote and sometimes I see a pair. Coyotes here are not fond of human gazes. When they see me, and I see them, they watch me warily. Then they walk away a little, stop and glance back. They do this once or a few times, and then they disappear.

A friend, who is also a regular visitor of the park, showed me the resident coyotes’ den last summer. He told me the coyote pair had 6 little ones last spring.

Last week, on March 4th, a Bohemian waxwing tail feather on the side of a trail caught my attention. I picked it up, and for a short while, I stood still to examine it. When I looked into the woods to my left, two coyote eyes were watching me. I’m glad I stopped for that feather!

I got my camera ready and waited for that itsy-bitsy moment when the coyote would walk through a clearing in the thicket . Between glances at me, it was sniffing the snow, trying to smell its next meal, I think.

Usually coyotes disappear through the woods. But this one popped out of the woods and onto the trail before trotting away. Maybe it was because the snow in the forest that day was deep and soft, and the coyote could move faster along the trail.

 

 

 

 

I wonder which generation of Mill Creek Ravine coyotes it belongs to…