Tag: coyotes

Kestrel

Kestrel, Point Reyes National Seashore

Male Kestrel Point Reyes National Seashore

A male kestrel perches on a metal fence post.

I love to photograph kestrels, especially the males because of that additional gray/blue color.  I would have preferred a wooden fence post here, or better yet, a nice tree branch.  The post reminds me of a photo contest rule that the camera clubs in the SF Bay Area followed when I was a member of one of the clubs.  I think it was referred to as the Hand-of-Man Rule.  As I recall, if you entered a photo in the nature/wildlife category, there couldn’t be anything in the photo that was man-made.   Obviously, this photo wouldn’t qualify, and rightly so.   I might be more sympathetic if the metal post were a wooden one, especially if the post were very old and weathered, but rules are rules and it’s not easy to make exceptions.  They did have an exception though, which I thought made the whole rule kind of stupid.  As I recall, the exception allowed for photos of wildlife that were collared or tagged in some way.   I could never figure out the justification for that one.  My only thought was that when they wrote the rule there was someone involved in the rule-writing who had a photo of a tagged or collared animal that he/she really wanted to enter in a contest in the wildlife category.  As I write this I wonder if some photos I took recently of a coyote in a field planted with silage for later mowing and feeding to livestock would be prohibited by the hand-of-man rule.  Writing clear rules (or laws) is not easy.

Rocky Mountain Elk

Elk Calf, Yellowstone National Park

newborn elk calf

Newborn Elk Calf along the Madison River

I apologize to those who have followed my blog for not having posted anything for many months.  I’m back and one thing I did during the interim was build a new website (and get rid of two former websites).   Hopefully, I’ve done what it takes for everyone to find this site.   Another thing I did in the interim was go through old images, like this photo of an elk calf, which I photographed in 2014.  When I look at old photos I don’t remember much about some, but others I remember very well.  That’s true with the images of this elk calf.

It was mid-June in Yellowstone and I was driving along the Madison River looking for animals to photograph, especially baby animals.  I don’t regularly drive along the Madison because I don’t have much luck there.  That’s partly because the elk herd in the Firehole/Madison area numbers less than 100 animals.  It’s the only elk herd that stays in the park in the winter and that takes its toll.  The animals are also affected by high fluoride and silica levels in the plants and water which wear their teeth out prematurely.  They live about five years less than elk in the rest of the park, according the the Park Service.

Anyway, it was getting late when I spotted a cow elk with this very small calf.  Another photographer was already there and he told me he saw the mother give birth that morning.  He added that a pair of coyotes had made an attempt to get the calf, but the mother had held them off.  I stayed until I couldn’t see and took this photo well after sunset.  By that time I had developed some connection to the calf and its mother and I decided that even though it was far from where I was staying I would get there by first light the next morning to see if the little one made it through the night.  I got there by first light, but there was no sign of the calf or its mother.  I hope it made it.

Coyote

Song Dogs; Point Reyes National Seashore

A pair of coyotes sing a song understood only by coyotes.
Song Dog Serenade

Hearing a howl or two from coyotes is usually all you get.  But in this case I was treated to several minutes of singing.  Hearing coyotes howl is one of the best sounds in nature.   Other favorites of mine include the calls of wolves; the bugling of bull elk during the rut; the call of a loon on a lake; and the honking of Canada geese as they fly in formation  overhead.

Bobcat

Bobcats; Comparing Point Reyes National Seashore and Yellowstone National Park

Bobcat, Point Reyes National Seashore
A bobcat moves through grass hunting for gophers at Point Reyes National Seashore.

I go to Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) often.  It’s rare that I go and not see at least one bobcat.  I also spend a month or so almost every year in Yellowstone National Park (YNP).   Yet, I’ve never seen a bobcat there in spite of the fact that they do exist.  I’ve often wondered why.

According to my most recent copy (2013) of the annual “Yellowstone Resources and Issues Handbook,”  bobcat numbers in Yellowstone are “unknown, but generally widespread.”  It says their habitat is in rocky areas and conifer forests.  It goes on to say that they are rarely seen, with most reported sightings being in rocky areas and near rivers.  I’ve seen a few online photos of them along the Madison River in winter.  Given the lack of stated population numbers, I assume they haven’t been studied much in Yellowstone, if at all.  I’m not aware of any bobcat study in PRNS either.  I assume PRNS doesn’t know how many bobcats there are in PRNS, let alone what their habitat preferences are.

In any event, why do I see bobcats regularly in PRNS and never in YNP?  I can only speculate.  My best guess is that it has to do with where the bobcat finds itself in the predator pecking order in each place.  In YNP the bobcat has to worry about grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes and mountain lions.  In PRNS it’s just coyotes and a very, very few mountain lions.  This may cause them to stick to the forests and other good cover in YNP without the same pressure to do so in PRNS.  If so, this reminds me of what I found last spring photographing pumas (aka mountain lions) in Patagonia’s Torres del Paine National Park (TDPNP) and adjacent private land. There are no bears or wolves in TDPNP.  There is a coyote-like predator there called the culpeo, but coyote-sized animals are no threat to a mountain lion.  While mountain lions in YNP stay in good cover, in TDPNP they feel no need to hide.  I saw 18 pumas in a week in TDPNP and all of them were in open areas – like the bobcats in PRNS.

Other Mammal

Uinta Ground Squirrel, Yellowstone National Park

Photo of a Uinta ground squirrel.
On the Lookout

The Uinta ground squirrel is commonly seen in the sagebrush areas of Yellowstone.  It’s also seen in disturbed or heavily grazed grasslands and  developed areas.  The Soda Butte Creek Picnic Area has a lot of them.  While prohibited, I’m sure some people feed them there.  They not only eat grasses, forbs and mushrooms, but also insects and carrion (including road-killed members of their own species).

While not very high on visitors’ lists of “must see” animals, they are important to the Yellowstone ecosystem because they are an important prey species for smaller predators such as hawks, weasels, foxes, badgers and coyotes.  At about 12 inches in length and half a pound, they are a more substantial meal than a 2-ounce vole.

Photo of a red fox carrying a ground squirrel.
Headin’ Home

This red fox carried this ground squirrel parallel to the road for about a 1/4 mile before it headed away from the road.  It created its own little “bear jam.”  I assume it was heading back to a den with hungry kits.

Other Bird

Yellow-headed Blackbird, Yellowstone National Park

Photo of a male yellow-headed blackbird singing for a mate.
Singing for a Mate

When I drove out to the Lamar Valley each day this past May I would usually check out the road to the Slough Creek campground.  It’s a good drive for finding bison, pronghorns and coyotes in the spring.  It’s also a prime area for wolves and grizzlies.  I would often see this male yellow-headed blackbird as I drove past a small marshy area along the road.

Yellow-heads are a little smaller than their red-winged cousins and not as common.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before in Yellowstone.  I know I’ve never photographed one there before.

Coyote

Marin’s Sensible Approach to Protecting Sheep from Coyotes

Photo of a coyote staring at the camera.
Portrait of a Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

There was a very good article in the San Francisco Chronicle last Friday about Marin County, California, and its approach to dealing with coyotes and sheep ranching.  (Marin County is the county you enter when you drive north across the Golden Gate Bridge.)   The article, written by Peter Fimrite, and entitled “Dogs Keeping Coyotes at Bay,” can be found here.

Most counties in the United States that have any sheep ranching in them have agreements with the Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service for “Wildlife Services.”  APHIS’ Wildlife Services (“WS”) unit has, as one of its purposes, the trapping, poisoning and shooting of wild animals that are considered to be a problem for someone.

In the late ’90s Marin County terminated its relationship with APHIS.  I remember reading an article in the Marin Independent Journal in the early to mid ’90s which summarized WS’ activities in Marin for the previous year.  It listed the number of coyotes killed.  There were a few things about the article that struck me.  First, I knew of WS, but was surprised that it even operated in Marin, a bedroom community of San Francisco.  Second, I was surprised at the number of coyotes killed.  Third, I was shocked that a large number of bobcats and badgers were also killed due to the non-selective nature of baited steel traps and poisoned meat.  (I was also surprised that there were even any badgers in Marin.  Fast forward.  Last year I photographed several in Point Reyes National Seashore.)   Thinking about it now, I assume the numbers were conservative because animals that die from poisoning aren’t always found and the same is even more true for animals that feed on the carcasses of poisoned animals and die even farther from the bait site.

As the article points out, things came to a head in 1996.  WS was killing a lot of coyotes, but sheep losses seemed to be unaffected.  WS proposed stepping up killing methods by adding collars for sheep which would be filled with the poison Compound 1080.  Some residents decided it was time to do something.  They were led by Camila Fox, now head of Project Coyote.  The State Legislature was convinced to ban steel traps and poison collars.  By the end of the ’90s the wildlife advocates convinced the County to end its relationship with WS.  The County decided to spend the money it used to pay to WS to instead pay for guard dogs, llamas, specialized fences, night corrals and lambing sheds and to pay the ranchers for any sheep losses.  The program has been an overwhelming success.  The county spends less than it paid WS and the sheep losses are much lower than in the WS days.  Not only do these measures greatly reduce sheep losses, but coyotes reproduce at lower levels when the Alpha males and females live normal-length lives as pack leaders, unlike when they are killed and packs break up and many more coyotes begin reproducing.  This is basic wildlife ecology, but it is ignored by WS.

In 2005 APHIS/WS completed a study of its activities in California entitled “Wildlife Services in California: Economic Assessments of Benefits and Costs.”  A copy of the report can be found here.  I’m not sure why the report was written, but it seems to me to have been written to justify its mission and methods, especially in light of Marin County’s success using non-lethal methods and at lower cost.

A word about the coyote photo.  I photographed it in Point Reyes National Seashore a couple of days before the San Francisco Chronicle article was published.  The coyote was smaller than usual.  It may have been a yearling, but I would assume a yearling would be about the size as its parents by now.  It also seemed totally unfazed by me in my car.  When I see and attempt to photograph coyotes in the open ranching areas of the Seashore they always get out of sight fast.  The same is true for bobcats and badgers (and wildlife in general).  I don’t know why it stayed fairly close while I photographed it.  Perhaps it had spent time in areas with lots of hikers before moving into the ranching area.