(Continued from Farming Lessons Learned Today, 04 June 2010)
When I first heard Pica scream, my initial reaction (since it was a single brief shriek), was that she had been stung by a bee of some sort. She often wanders over to the pigpen where she feasts on rotten food scraps left over from last year (disgusting dog), and last year there was a very active yellowjacket nest there. So I put down my trellising line and walked over there casually, expecting to find her running towards me with her tail tucked, perhaps in need of some Benadryl to alleviate an allergic reaction. Instead, I came face-to-face with a large, lab-sized coyote (i.e., similar in size to Chestnut). It turned briefly and ran a few yards, then stopped and looked back at me, wary but not at all afraid. My immediate reaction was of course that it had caught Pica, but I saw nothing in its mouth. I was struck at the same time by a deep fascination with the animal that was casually trotting away from me through the forest.
I ran to where the coyote was initially standing, expecting to find her remains but I found no trace whatsoever. Meanwhile, the coyote was making its way towards our field. I badly wanted to follow it; it was the first coyote I had seen in Maine, despite hearing their haunting songs frequently and being as close to within 10 meters of a pack without seeing a single animal through the shadows (in contrast, I had seen many coyotes in Santa Barbara and even been surrounded by a pack once while taking the dogs for a walk in the foothills). The coyotes in Maine have been incredibly elusive and ostensibly shy; their scat and tracks appear frequently on our forest trails and their howls, yips, and cries often wake us in the middle of the night. So I was torn between tracking the coyote and hunting for Pica. If Pica had been eaten, what could I do about it anyway? But to see a coyote up close and track it through the forest: that’s a rare experience. In the end, my better sense won out.
I began to scour the place for any signs of Pica or a struggle, while yelling Pica’s name. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I returned to the driveway to find her there, cowering and emotionally scarred it seemed, but physically intact and unharmed.
I imagine she was at the pigpen, saw the coyote heading in her direction, yelped out of fear and ran away as fast as she could on her three legs, before the coyote even realized what she was. Coyotes are incredibly intelligent and premeditating hunters; the coyote was likely after the decaying pig head still in the pigshed and was not in a hunting or pursuing mode of behavior. Like (good) human hunters, they probably don’t attack potential prey frivolously but rather engage in very well planned and intentional hunts with sophisticated social stalking and attacking behaviors. If they encounter prey when not in “hunting” mode, they probably generally ignore it, as it is not worth the additional energy expenditure to incur that added risk of a failed hunt. I can only guess this means that the coyote didn’t realize Pica was missing a leg.
The coyote (presumably the same one I ran into yesterday) was in our back field almost all day today, feeding on something in the grass and forbs. At first I thought it might be eating wild strawberries (our own berries are beginning to ripen and are falling prey to a pesky chipmunk and slugs), but the wild ones aren’t ripe yet. The coyote seemed either very distracted or bold, allowing me to walk out onto the porch and watch it in plain sight. It was so consumed by whatever prey it was pursuing in the field that it appeared to pay no attention to the audibly clucking and crowing chickens a few hundred feet away.
Brent and I investigated the area this evening after the coyote departed, saw many tracks and trodden upon patches of grass, found some fur, and some scat that suggested it might be eating seeds of some sort.
The photo was taken through a spotting scope; you can barely see the trunk of our maple tree that we planted at our wedding just to the right and above/behind the coyote. The coyote had brilliant yellow eyes and a white and black crescent stripe arching across its back, as well as a distinctive black stripe along its tail. I have no idea whether it was a male or female, but Brent said he saw the coyote early in the morning a couple of days ago with a companion — perhaps a mated pair, or two young males that recently left their pack?
