Coyotes and Katie

I was out hiking Sunday when I saw a coyote. He was not right in front of me so I’m only pretty sure that he was a coyote, but in my world, “pretty sure” is good enough. He was on the edge of a field near some wooded area a few hundred yards away. He was stalking the high grass for anything that moved. I did not see him catch anything, but he sure was working on it. A minute later he darted into the woods and out of sight.

I have seen a couple of coyotes in my life, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen one east of the Mississippi. For as often as I’m outside wandering around parks and wooded areas, I think it is a little surprising that I have not spotted a coyote in Massachusetts up until yesterday. Supposedly there is a pretty good population in all of New England.

The first coyote I ever saw makes for a mundane, boring story, which means it is exciting enough for this blog. It took place about five years ago. I was with my boyfriend at the time, Mike, and we had just visited the Ancient Bristlecone Pine area in eastern California, in the Sierras. We were driving along this small but paved road, out in the middle of nowhere, headed east towards the Nevada border, when we came along an old grave not far off the road, on the side of a small hill. The grave had a weathered, wooden grave marker, and was surrounded by a heavy, rusted steel fence that could have been 100 years old. It was very photogenic. I asked Mike to stop, that I wanted to take a picture.

With camera in hand, I hopped out of the car, bound for the grave, but just before I got there, a coyote came over the crest of the hill right in front of me. When we encountered each other, we both instantly froze in our steps. We could not have been any more than about fifteen feet apart. He was a gristly looking thing. His gray fur was thin and sparse, and as I recall, part of one ear was missing. We stared at each other for a good five seconds when I realized that he wasn’t going to attack me. I then stuck out a hand in a rather odd gesture of friendship, and murmured, “Hello there fella.” That was all it took. Off went the coyote in the opposite direction, probably half scared to death of this crazy human person.

Afterwards I was kicking myself for not taking his picture, but I had completely forgotten that the camera was in my hand. In fact, I never took a photo of the grave either. I was so excited that I hurried back to the car hoping that Mike would have a few extra thoughts on his witnessing my wild animal encounter, but of course he had been playing with the car radio and had seen nothing. When I excitedly described to him that I had been face-to-face with a coyote, he smiled and said, “That’s great Katie. Did you see a road runner too?” Geez.