2510_0410 Coyote Gaze
"Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies."
- Diane Arbus
I was back in the rolling red Toyota blind, having just walked a small bit of prairie with a Coyote (see yesterday's photo). Feeling good. Wondering what else lay ahead.
I found out soon enough. I drive very slowly on these quiet roads, not wanting to miss anything, and yet I would have missed this young Coyote had it not stood up in the tall grass and looked back at me. It showed no fear, only a mild curiosity, I thought - although I can't possibly know what goes on in anyone's mind, animal or human. But it lay back down in the grass, evidently calm, while keeping an eye on me. And a few minutes later it got up and worked its way across the field, stopping here and there to listen for rodents rustling the grass, before disappearing into a gully.
What a privilege to see this, I thought. Lucky me!
Half an hour later I spotted it again, with a sibling, working a stretch of sagebrush flats between the Ecotour Road and the Frenchman River, too far away for good photos. That was okay with me. I'd already had my Oreo cookies.
Tomorrow: Coyote hunting strategies...
Photographed in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2025 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
2510_0410 Coyote Gaze
"Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies."
- Diane Arbus
I was back in the rolling red Toyota blind, having just walked a small bit of prairie with a Coyote (see yesterday's photo). Feeling good. Wondering what else lay ahead.
I found out soon enough. I drive very slowly on these quiet roads, not wanting to miss anything, and yet I would have missed this young Coyote had it not stood up in the tall grass and looked back at me. It showed no fear, only a mild curiosity, I thought - although I can't possibly know what goes on in anyone's mind, animal or human. But it lay back down in the grass, evidently calm, while keeping an eye on me. And a few minutes later it got up and worked its way across the field, stopping here and there to listen for rodents rustling the grass, before disappearing into a gully.
What a privilege to see this, I thought. Lucky me!
Half an hour later I spotted it again, with a sibling, working a stretch of sagebrush flats between the Ecotour Road and the Frenchman River, too far away for good photos. That was okay with me. I'd already had my Oreo cookies.
Tomorrow: Coyote hunting strategies...
Photographed in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2025 James R. Page - all rights reserved.