For a few seconds, it stared into my eyes as if it knew and loved me. Maybe even adoration. Or so I fancied. Its eyes were wide and seemed welcoming. My cat used to look at me like that when she was alive. She’d give me that stare before jumping down from her tree house to greet me.
But this creature was canine, and it could probably do me some damage, if it really wanted to, and if its species wasn’t so skittish of humans.
This particular one was perched atop a mulch pile bordering a thicket of bunchgrass, mesquite and catclaw acacia, near a periphery of scrubland.
Seconds after the encounter, it climbed down from its lookout and trotted away, its bushy tail characteristically between its legs.
Prior to my excursion on Feb. 18, I had never seen or heard a coyote in the wild.
At first, I heard what I thought was plain old barking, so I dismissed it as a dog. But this particular dog was doing an awful lot of howling, too, I thought to myself. In fact, each short series of barks, which reminded me of a small engine trying to kick over, erupted into a doleful cry. Then I heard one that was closer, so I followed the sound, and then there it was, staring at me.
Several of them were out and about that morning at Floyd Lamb Park at Tule Springs, and a park official drove around in a pickup truck along the pedestrian trails and offroad as well to warn dog owners.
Coyotes are omnivorous, so a dog might do just fine for a nice meal, as far as they are concerned, although they typically go for smaller mammals, as well as many types of fruit.
The coyote’s barks and howls “keeps the band alert to the locations of its members and helps to reunite them when separated,” says the National Audubon Society’s Field Guide to Mammals, North America. “One call usually prompts other individuals to join in…” The guide adds that if the coyote merely barks without howling, this could be a “threat display employed in defense of a den or a kill.”
the prickly pressed 
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