Ahoy Nature! Permission To Board?
I truly love the animals around me, even the scary, poisonous or deadly ones. This year is crazy busy with life and the death that accompanies such a burst.
Notable this year are the black widows, gopher snakes and coyotes. I’ve had the unfortunate duty of killing several widows and the extreme pleasure of playing with a few gopher snakes (they are grumpy little suckers though). The coyote thing is a bit hard to describe. There’s something extra special about observing such a large wild animal; I’m not sure why that is.
In the last two weeks I’ve had two direct run-ins with the coyotes. Tonight was thrilling while last week was scary. First episode first…
I was watching Matt’s place while he was out of town last week, tending to his chickens (he has 5!), feeding the local quail and watering the python and bearded dragon. One of those nights Joe stayed the night so we did what we usually do (talk about work, play chess and donning general idiot caps). We heard a bunch of barking from a neighbor’s place who happens to have two dogs. I feared for the chickens across the street, thinking that *a* coyote was over there so I jammed across the street to check things out and chase off the wild pooch if necessary.
I ended up walking into a group of a dozen (or so) coyotes. You’d have to know the layout of his backyard to understand this next piece but I’ll try and paint a reasonable picture. As you come up to his chicken coop you can head “right” towards the opening or you can head “left” to his back deck. I got right to the decision-making point (right or left) and flipped on my flashlight. I saw tons of red eyes looking back at me and doing some general scattering. I had two choices: 1) chase them off and hope to hell they don’t act as a group and take me down or 2) head to the deck and start stomping, waiving my flashlight and yelling at them to get outta there. I opted for number 2 (and almost, number 2, if you know what I mean). There was a third choice but you don’t do it around a pack of coyotes and that is, get close to them and then turn and run. They’ll chase you down and tear you up as a natural reaction.
It’s weird because I wasn’t scared like I bloody should have been. I was not comfy-cozy but things are not so bad when you have so few choices; They’re even better when you only have one logical choice.
So that’s my big, “surrounded by coyotes” story. And tonight I got to see one in action, chasing down its prey, right in front of me. Two problems though. First, I was sitting in my garage and this brazen barker bolted right across my driveway while my garage door was open and my lights were on (and Ben was hanging right next to me!). Second, his prey was my new cat, aptly named, “Gravy”.
This was a lone coyote and Gravy managed to scurry up the tree before she was poured over a rabbit or some other meal. I stuffed Ben inside and ran out after the animal shouting and waving my stringy arms to scare him off. I could swear he stopped to look back at me and laugh before running off. He’s probably playing poker with the other coyotes and telling this story a completely different way right now. Trust me, mine is the most accurate depiction.
I find it odd that I find wildlife so fascinating given that I’ve been around it (to a certain degree) for my entire life. I’m not in New York City but there’s still a couple hundred thousand people out here and plenty of concrete laying around so I guess I keep expecting to *not* see this sort of thing anymore out here.
As long as they still tolerate us, I appreciate seeing all of them. And if a rattle snake comes close to my house, I’ll appreciate his taste in a killer stew.
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