Truth is I should have been up and out of my nice warm bed 45 minutes earlier when the alarm had gone off. Instead I'd turned over and was asleep again. Whip's barking woke me. It was more insistent than a there-is-a-rabbit bark so I went to see what was up. Still that twilight before dawn but I could make out a coyote was on one of the paths. It appeared to know that Whip couldn't reach it but cautious enough not to come closer. Instead it chose to desecrate Whip's fiefdom by urinating on the path. Whip was apoplectic. The coyote then did a languorous stretch, kicking up the 'scented' snow, and trotting off into a field. "
Bitch." I said. (It was a female.) Suddenly the coyote flops over on it's back w/ all of it's legs flailing in the air. There was another coyote coming from the east across the field and they seemed happy to see each other. "
Must be a pair." I thought. The greeting stops and they both point their noses back toward the east. I look too and another coyote is standing at the edge of the field. "
Am I going to get the whole pack?" I wondered. Probably not from the same pack - the pair take off to the west and woods as fast as possible (the snow pack isn't strong and they sink in here and there).. The interloper runs after them but slows when the pair are out of sight. He turns to go south to Gorgeous Gorge. After that excitement I'm awake. I throw on some clothes and put Whip's light-up vest on her. If there are coyotes still around they might be deterred by a glowing dog. Fresh snow last night so I checked tracks by the bird feeders. Tracks from a solitary rabbit. Whip can't come close to catching these local rabbits but maybe a coyote could? Ominously there were tinier tracks out by the feeder. The field mouse I'd watched yesterday or something bigger? If my backyard has become part of a coyote winter buffet line, they are welcome to the smorgasbord of mice, voles, and (ugh) rats.
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