In Our Backyard?

It’s pitchy black when we wake up these mornings.  Pitchy black but not quiet.  Not at all.  A pack – or according to collective noun writer James Lipton, ‘a wiliness’ of coyotes – is well into the fifth or sixth chorus of their nightly singalong by the time we are groping toward our first cup of coffee.  They don’t awaken us; our alarm clock does.  Which is a commentary on our deafness, not their cacophonic abilities.

We’ve had a number of houseguests the last few months – city folks mostly.  They all remark about the coyotes and wonder if our chickens are under threat.  As yet, we have no evidence to suggest that Wily E. and friends have interest in the coop.  There have been no attempts to get through the hog-wire enclosure; no signs of critters trying to dig under the fence.  I’m sure the coyotes and hens are aware of one another but, thus far, détente is intact.  Unless the howling is more a battle cry than a lullaby…

Last Year’s Burn Pile

From the sound, there are several coyotes, as in more than three.  They seem to be just beyond our east fence in the area of Nyel’s burn pile (which is ginormous right now).  It occurs to me that they could have tunneled into that huge pile of rotting limbs and yard detritus… maybe even made themselves a den of sorts.  According to a coyote fact sheet put out by the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum:

Coyotes have a central den site which is used for rearing the pups and sleeping. They will scent mark the area around the den and defend it from other coyotes. The den can be a burrow dug into the ground, or under a rock outcropping, a tree or a bush. If the area gets disturbed the mother will often move the pups to a safer location.

Neighbors?

Getting rid of that burn pile is on the top of Nyel’s “To Do” list.  Now that the burn ban is over and the rains are coming more frequently, he is planning to take care of it at the earliest opportunity.  But first, I think, we need to determine if that is, in fact, where this coyote family is hunkering.  And howling.  I’m a live-and-let-live sort and, so far, the Wiley E.s are too.  So be it.