coyote – Boolie

Brown in Green

Bear and I saw a coyote on a neighborhood walk recently, they’re not uncommon but I hear them more than I see them, especially at night when I like to go out back and look at the stars and listen to the quiet. I’ve never seen one when I had an appropriate camera with me however, all part of their cunning plans. That wasn’t the case at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge though where I saw them many times hunting in the meadows and marshes along the auto tour.

📷: Canon 20D | Canon 100-400mm
🗓️: May 29, 2005

The Beauty of the Auto Tour

While on a visit to Ridgefield on a rainy Christmas in 2011, I accidentally took a short nap while in a pullout beside Rest Lake (I mean, given the name of the lake, hardly my fault) which meant I was lucky enough to be in the right position when driving past the meadow that I got to spend quite a while watching a coyote hunting voles in the rain. It’s what I loved about the auto tour, getting to watch animals behave naturally at relatively close distances without disturbing them.

These pictures are a bit bittersweet as while I got to watch the family at length multiple times that winter, my pictures from a couple of months later would be my last photos of coyotes at the refuge as they were shot to create a safer haven for the threatened Columbian white-tailed deer that were about to be transplanted. Thankfully the deer seemed to be establishing themselves by the time I had to say goodbye to the refuge so hopefully coyotes have been allowed back since.

I’m not sure the many Townsend’s voles in the meadows around the refuge missed the coyotes, although perhaps they didn’t notice given the wide variety of predators that ate them. It was always a little hard to watch through the big lens as one little life was snuffed out, even knowing it allowed another life to continue. I always hoped to photograph a vole on its own but I only ever managed to catch them when something else caught them first.

Fog Hunt

The coyotes were active on this winter day in 2006, using the heavy fog as cover to hunt a variety of prey. This one made a half-hearted, almost playful, attempt at a great blue heron I had been photographing, later I saw one running across the meadow with a goose in its mouth.

In the Shadows

A coyote pauses in the shadow of a dense thicket of blackberries, invasives that are widespread across parts of the Pacific Northwest including Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in Washington. The coyote was next to the parking lot at the trailhead for the Kiwa Trail, I got to see and hear it howl in the sunlight before it sauntered up to the blackberries and started down the trail (which was closed to humans, I watched the coyote from my car).

You Might Not See It Coming (Or Going)

A coyote runs past in a frosty meadow, obscured in heavy fog, with a cackling goose in its mouth.

Matted

This coyote was hunting along the edge of Rest Lake with another coyote on a winter afternoon. I saw them on multiple occasions, moving about the refuge together, this one had matted fur under its neck and was easy to recognize.

A Christmas Coyote

Thanks to the auto tour at Ridgefield NWR, I’ve had the chance to watch coyotes up close on many occasions without disturbing them, such as this one hunting for voles on Christmas afternoon in 2011. But if it survived into the spring of this year it’s likely dead now, as the coyotes on the refuge were killed in an attempt to improve the likelihood of Columbian white-tailed fawns surviving into adulthood. The deer are a threatened species while coyotes most certainly are not.

Killing coyotes may be necessary to help the whitetails recover, but I’ll miss them, they were one of my favorites.

Peace

My favorite coyote picture, taken over a year ago in January of 2012.

Coyotes have a complicated and controversial relationship with our modern world, and I’m not sure how this pack will fare now that subdivisions have replaced the meadows on the hills above the refuge. I see them near the road sometimes as I drive into town before sunrise, but I see them as roadkill too. And there will be conflicts with barbed-wire fences and dogs and cats.

But on this morning, as it hunted for voles with its mate, and as a few snowflakes began to fall, all was peaceful. Only the three of us were around, and since I stayed quiet in my car, they let me watch at my leisure as they worked the length of the dike.

A peaceful morning for me, if not for the voles.

Howling

I first met this coyote when we surprised each other on the short trail to the observation blind at Ridgefield. When I got back to the car I moved on to the Kiwa Trail parking lot and discovered the coyote had as well. I drove to the far side of the lot to get a better angle on the sunlight then gently swung the car into place. The coyote didn’t pay me much heed and hunted in the meadow for a while, then surprised me once more by howling a few times (unanswered). It then slipped through the gate and disappeared up the trail.

I’ve heard coyotes howl many times but it was fun to finally get to see it.

Rest Lake

The picture above of a coyote hunting in the marsh is deliberately like this bittern picture, both taken at Rest Lake. The lake is the largest on Ridgefield’s auto tour and has water in it year round, but the marshy areas that ring the lake are my favorite places to watch. To survive in these areas is to avoid being eaten not just by coyotes and bitterns but herons and hawks and harriers and eagles and otters and mink and weasels and raccoons and snakes and bullfrogs and …