Coyote Calling

Saturday night at sunset, the unmistakable call of a coyote came floating down off the mountain. I do love the fact that there are predator mammals on the mountain. But I also worry that my dog looks an awful lot like a coyote, because there are hunters in the woods who would think nothing of shooting them.

Still, it feels like a wild place, a primal place, when you hear that sound. Not a wolf-like howl, but more like a yipping puppy with a resonant warble in the throat. There's nothing like it in the world, other than "coyote."

I first heard the sound in the Guadalupe Mountains in West Texas, in March of 1979. Dave and I spent a cold, windy night on those upper plains, listening to a whole community of them, conversing back and forth. Coyotes are solitary animals, unlike wolves who travel and live in packs, but they do let each other know where they are with their calls. I haven't heard them since--until we moved to Devil's Nose. Bill had never heard them until this winter here, and he was as enchanted as I.

The more I live here in the arms of the forest, the happier I am.