Category: Coyote

Coyote

Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

This is a photo of a coyote taken at sunset while it was looking in the direction of the camera.

I shot this photo yesterday at my favorite time, sunset.  My goal for the day was to get some shots of bull tule elk now that their antlers are covered in velvet, but I had no luck there.  Saw a number of cow elk in the north end of the ranching area.  I’d love to know how many of the old elk reserve elk have left it now that the Park Service has removed a large portion of the old elk fence.  Saw a few bobcats, but the tall spring vegetation kept them mostly covered.

Coyote

Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

This is a photo of a coyote facing the setting sun at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Here is a photo I took in 2011 that I came across recently.  I don’t know why I never put it on my website, but I just corrected that.  It was taken at sunset in the ranching area of Point Reyes National Seashore.

Ranching?  Yes, there is ranching in this unit of the national park system.  The ranchers were all bought out by the Park Service between 1962 and 1978 and, to ease the move out of the Seashore, the Park Service gave them reservations of use and occupancy for 20 years.   The last ones should have been out by 1998, but thanks to politics, they are still there and paying a rent for grazing and living there of often less than 10% of fair market value.  The Park Service is required by law to collect fair market for any lands or buildings it leases.

Coyote

Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

This is a photo of a coyote at Point Reyes National Seashore at sunset.

I photographed this coyote yesterday just before the sun set  I spotted it about fifteen or twenty minutes before sunset and stayed with it until the sun actually set.  It’s my favorite time to photograph wildlife, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that.  I assume the light is just ad good at sunrise, but it’s a heck of a lot harder spotting anything to photograph in the dark.

Coyote

Coyote in a Field of Silage; Point Reyes National Seashore

Photo of a coyote in a silage field.

Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

I saw this coyote walking through this silage field a few weeks ago.  Silage consists of any of a number of plants that are mowed in the spring when still green for feeding cattle.  I have written about it in the past.  One problem with it is that when it is mowed in the spring it results in the deaths of any number of ground or near-ground nesting birds and their offspring.  It also kills small mammals that live in the tall, protective vegetation and larger mammals like deer fawns, who are wired to stay still even when a noisy mower is approaching.  They stay still because they aren’t very fast on their “feet” during that first week.  Same applies to the rest of the deer family (elk and moose) and to pronghorns.  Not bison calves though.  Those bison calves, aka “red dogs,” can run with their moms from birth.

Coyote

Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

This is a photo of a coyote in new green grass.

Coyote Standing in New, Green Grass

I was out at Point Reyes yesterday.  It was a fairly good day wildlife photography-wise.  I was able to photograph this coyote, a badger, a bobcat, some elk and some hawks.  The coyotes look good right now with their new winter fur.

I prefer the winter and spring for photography at Point Reyes because the grass is green.  Unfortunately, cattle ranching has converted the grasses from the native, perennial grasses that stayed green throughout the year to non-native, annual grasses that die each year when the winter/spring rains end and we go into our dry Mediterranean summer and fall when the place looks like a waste land.