Coyotes in the Woods

I have long known the area in which we live has a large and healthy coyote population. There has been many summer nights I have sat on the back porch and listened to the coyotes yip and howl on our farm. In the past their eerie, yet beautiful serenade would come from different directions on different nights. Sometimes their calls were distant and lonely; sometimes they were so close the manic yipping and howling was almost deafening. The sound of the train rumbling past in the distance would set them off to howling on many nights.

This year things have been a little different. I still hear lone coyotes calling from different directions, but their daily group yip, howl has echoed from the same direction and general location all winter. It sounds like the highest level of activity comes from the woods at the back of our property, behind our goat pasture. I was pretty sure by their calls they had set up an area of our woods where lots of ceder trees grow as cover for their home. About half of our farm is in hay meadows and our homestead, the rest is a wildlife heaven of woods and brushy pastures and I like it that way. We do use livestock guardian dogs to protect our goats from coyotes.

The other evening I kept hearing a strange sound, at first I thought it was a bird. The second time I heard the sound, it was clearly not a bird. No, that sounded like puppies. The mewling, whining cry of very young puppies and it sounded like it was coming from the woods behind our goat pastures. Could it be? Coyote puppies? Since coyotes breed in late winter or about the end of January through March, it seems a bit early for coyote puppies. It was still worth a walk through the woods. No pups or coyotes was spotted, but other interesting things was found in the woods on our farm.

It is hard to see in this picture, but this is a deer trail through the woods on our farm.

A well worn animal trail in the woods.It is very hard to see in this picture, but there is an old den at the base & under this old tree.

Probably a coyote den, it doesn't appear active.

A coyote den, there was three holes like this found in close proximity to each other. Dens can have more than one entrance, so it is possible a couple may be entrances to the same den. Looks like from the roughed up dirt it has been used recently. Coyotes will also sometimes take over old groundhog or fox dens and enlarge them for their own use.

Another den entrance, it is larger than it appears in the picture.

Could be a coyote print. I am not sure, it isn't very well defined in this loose soil but it was near one of the dens. Maybe we should look for prints after a rain.

This is a bit of grey hair that was found caught on a low strand of an old barbed wire fence in the woods near the dens. I believe it is likely coyote hair. I wish I had a night vision camera to set up in the woods to try and get some pictures of the wildlife. That would be interesting!