Yesterday afternoon, I was out with the dog on a leash. Our neighbor opened her back door and her two dogs took off running towards the back of their yard. Something large and with a kind of golden brownish black back came shooting up the creek between our houses. Mrs. Wigglebottom went silent, ears straight up, nose in the air, eyes wide, four legs firm on the ground.
The thing in the creek must have smelled her at the same time, because it did a quick u-turn and then, lickity-split, it was gone.
But it took Mrs. W longer to untense.
“A coyote” I said out loud just as I realized it and my own voice startled me.
But the creek bed, now that I think about it, is a perfect path for coyote. You can get from the hill north of Lloyd and that big pasture, under Lloyd and under the fence, through another pasture, under another fence, and, if you use the culvert in our front yard, you can get under Clarksville Pike and over to those hills. I don’t know how smart coyotes are about cars, but sticking to our creek bed would certainly help you avoid them. And your likelihood of getting shot in our creekbed is slim and none.
Last night, I heard a coyote laughing and just now I heard it again.
I know they kill pets, but I have to admit, I kind of like them.
Earlier this summer Mrs. W and I saw a coyote with a really golden base coat crossing OHB and seeing that same color in my creek make me wonder if it’s the same coyote or a member of its family.
Although I look online now and see a lot of coyotes are very golden. It’s just the ones I’ve seen up until now have been more gray.
Tiny Cat Pants 
I saw ‘my’ local coyote on Wednesday! I live in the middle of nowhere with lots of coyotes and I still like them-even though I’ve have two cats and a guinea hen dissapeared by them.
Sometimes nature breaks your heart as it looks striking….sigh.
The sound of coyotes chills me. And then it excites me that they are there, waiting.
We see them a lot but the first one I saw I thought was a mangy mutt. Let’s just say Squirrel Queen had to educate me on my lack of coyote knowledge a few years back. (I may live in Hoots, but I’m still a townie.)
last Saturday, friends and I were en route to the Roller Derby. We (I wasn’t driving) cut thru the neighborhood where the Governor’s mansion is located, can’t recall that road – perhaps Curtiswood – anyway, it was around dusk and lo and behold, a coyote was trotting on a freshly manicured lawn. We stopped the car to look – and it stopped to look back.
Like ‘Coma said, chill inducing.
Our local coyotes are BIG and grey. Much bigger here in SoCal (in a distinctly urban environment, might I add) than the little yellow guys we had in Boulder. I guess wild rats are better food than prairie dogs. We’ve seen them in the morning when we go out to run. They trot along the sidewalks like dogs, give us dirty looks, and ghost away across the lawns.
Before the construction across the street, we used to hear them singing in the middle of the night really close by, and sometimes we’d see them running between the apartments. We still hear them, but it’s a lot more distant. (And it still freaks the cats out. If I wake up with all three of them on me, no fighting, no biting, I know there’s coyote out there).
The very word “coyote” makes me cringe… for more than one reason!