Urban Coyote
Some days you just get lucky and nature finds you. Today, enjoying brunch at the relatives house, sitting bloody mary in hand, my back to the windows, I hear my niece ask her mom, "Is that a dog? or a wolf? or a coyote?" Sure enough it was the latter, a coyote making its way upstream on Minnehaha Creek on what was left of the ice after the recent spell of warm weather.
We all watched it walk upstream then double back into some brush at the side of the yard. The coyote stood motionless for a while and then suddenly jumped and pounced on something in the snow, but unsuccessfully. Then it crossed the yard, dug for a little bit in one place, and continued on its way, returning to the ice on the creek. I didn't have my camera at hand, but my daughter was kind enough to part with her iPhone for a few minutes so that I could take a couple pictures.
My father-in-law questioned how a coyote could survive in the suburbs. I thought it more surprising that all these people manage to survive here without growing any food or raising any livestock. Like deer and crows and roaches, the coyotes are one of the few species that prosper in the wake of human progress. If they eat a few feral cats...so be it.
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