On the last snowy day of a week of challenging winter weather here in western Washington state, my wife saw something unusual: a pair of coyotes on the trail next to our house in mid-morning daylight.
At first she thought someone’s dog got loose or was off-leash, but then when she saw the second coyote it was clear to her they were not pet dogs, but coyotes.
One of the coyotes crossed our driveway behind our car as they both headed across the street in front of our house. Taking their own slightly-diverging paths, they ducked into the strip of trees, one of them along another well-traveled trail used by neighboring humans.
My wife said the coyotes’ fur and shapes really stood out against the snow, easily clinching their identity as Canis latrans.
I didn’t get to see them, but I did head outside in my snowboots and nightgown to look at their tracks and investigate their journey before the sloppy-wet heavy snow obliterated them or melted.
All week — from the time the snow was predicted to NOT hit us on Friday but totally did, up to and including this coyote day of Thursday, January 18th –– nobody seemed able to correctly predict what kind of precipitation we would get or were actually having. For example: everybody’s phones in town told us it was raining on this coyote day while we all could clearly see and feel it was snowing. For many hours the animated raindrops on our screens were contradicted by big white flakes outside our windows.
It’s very unusual for us to see coyotes in our neighborhood during the day. While we do hear them very close to our house when it’s dark, they’re never this close. We have *never* seen them on the trail by our house or in our driveway. I vaguely recall seeing one at night on our street, but even if I’m remembering correctly, it’s unusual.
The only other time I remember us seeing coyote casually out in daylight was in 2020 during COVID “lockdown”. For awhile there, seeing wild animals sauntering down the street was more common with fewer cars and humans out and about. Still, that coyote sighting was just one quite a few blocks away and on the edge of undeveloped land and forest. Not smack dab in the middle of our neighborhood packed with houses.
This past week we experienced bitterly-cold temperatures like we almost never experience on this side of the mountains close to sea level. I worried about all of the birds and animals; it was so deathly frozen and devoid of creature noise and activity. I was so happy when, a day or two before coyote day, I saw squirrels dashing across our driveway and across the street, taking virtually the same exact path the coyotes did later. Were the coyotes following their scent, or maybe the wild bunny rabbits’?
After taking those pics, I went back to explore the trail they emerged from alongside our house. There was one set of human bootprints so I guess it’s possible that person was walking a smallish-dog who left this pile of poop:
The color and consistency may not seem coyote-like (we can’t see any furry bits), but it *was* smack dab in the center of the trail like they do. I imagine they might be eating cheap pet-food people have no doubt been leaving out for feral cats and other animals. If so, that might also explain them venturing so far into the neighborhood in broad daylight.
Anyway … I loved the invitation to venture outside in my pajamas looking closely at the ground and inspecting poop.
I should’ve brought a quarter or something for scale to photograph next to everything, but I was just running out there in a hurried flurry of fun before some crazy person drove down the street and obliterated everything with their tire tracks.