How I've missed the sweet sounds of the coyote packs. When Sky and I first moved to Albany,la on a 2 acre piece of land, we had two regular coyote packs that would run through. The packs were small in size about 6 adults to each pack. They always stayed close to our tree lines when they'd move through and their howls and yips were somewhat eerie and comforting at the same time. One morning I accidently mistook a lone coyote for a fox. In my defense the grass in the tree line was really high and I couldn't see his feet and thought he was lounging on a fallen tree trunk. The animal I saw in the tree line watched me slowly closing his eyes unthreatened as I approached him. He didn't seem to care that I was getting slowly closer and seemed to be just as curious about me as I was about him. It wasn't until I was about 10 feet from him that he jumped up and turned to run off deeper into the woods. That's when I realized he was not a fox but a coyote. I probably should've been a little more Leary about approaching a wild animal, but I didn't feel threatened by the coyote in the least and he didn't seem threatened by me at all.
Well tonight was our first encounter with a very large pack of coyotes on the farm. Jack had been acting up like he does when he needs to go out. I had asked Skylar to take him out yet again. She wasn't out there but a minute when I jumped up off the couch and told Sean something didn't sound right outside. Before I made it to the door Skylar was rushing Jack back inside. I asked what was all the noise outside and Sky's only answer was coyotes. So I grabbed Sean and out the door we went with flashlight in hand. Little did I know we were in for a Huge surprise. The coyotes, never seen of course not even the reflections of their eyes, had surrounded the house and were moving through the tree line of the farm. The majority of the pack just off to our left heading toward the front of the farm. Their Howls were so loud it was almost deafening. I heard at least 20 distinctly different howls all sound off at once like a war cry had been sent up. My only thought was that I didn't know where Big Ben had gotten off to and hoped that he had hid somewhere safe. My next thought after the howls had died down was to jump into the truck and to let Big Ben's owner know that a pack was moving through and to check on his chickens. Sadly though Ben's owners weren't home so I left and came back home.
Even though Coyotes can be a nuisance to livestock and to small family pets and small children, I do love having them around. I love their howls in the middle of the night and the fact that they eat snakes. In the years we've had coyote packs move through we've had less problems with poisonous snakes. Of course anyone who owns persimmon trees, probably don't care for coyotes too much since the coyotes like to eat the persimmons. However, the persimmons make the coyotes rather sleepy and a little more docile.
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