Things we do

I am getting more familiar with my weekly schedule.  On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, we track coyotes using antannae, travelling east or west across our study area and stopping at designated spots to check for signals.  We plot the direction of the signals on the map and record the triangles that intersecting bearings make on the landscape, which are presumably where the coyotes are.  On Tuesdays, we find a good spot and sit there, recording whatever coyote activity we may see or hear.  The activity I've witnessed has been sparse, limited to only a few minutes at a time in a two or three hour observation.  Sometimes we hear them yipping and howling, which we record as well.  

On Thursdays, we check for the three dispersed coyotes in the Blacktail/Gardiner Basin, which is outside of our normal study area.  This Thursday, we had the luck of spotting two of the coyotes we were tracking.  However, both of them were in bad shape.  This one, M234, used to be one of the biggest coyotes being studied.  But that day we saw him, he was gaunt and stiff legged, walking down the side of the road.  

Tourists slowed down to watch, and one car (background) began driving directly behind him, about 10 feet away, and a passenger got out and began walking and taking pictures.  I yelled at them to stop.  I have to admit though, I probably would do some of the same obnoxious things that we see tourists do here.

Thursdays are also supposed to be for observation as well, and after we got tired of that, we decided to walk out and find a den that had been raided by some wolves a week ago.  What had happened, according to some observers, was that the Druid Pack wolves had begun digging out the Specimen Pack den, as wolves often do to kill coyote pups, when a herd of bison

 moved into the area and chased out the wolves.  It was an interesting interaction since the bison essentially rescued Specimen Pack's litter, and nobody knew why.  

We knew that the pack would have quickly moved their litter to a spare den, and that the den would have been empty by now.  We walked up to it, and one intrepid intern stuck her head, nay her entire body, inside.  Then everyone else stuck their head inside, so I did it too.  Coyote dens are long and winding, up to 20 feet deep.  Their serptentine shape is designed to stop invaders like the Druid wolves.  The den was dry and musty smelling, and with my head in the entrance, I saw the tunnel wall directly in front of me, since the passage made an immediate turn or fork.  But the den was empty and quiet.  We poked around the site for a little longer and then headed back to the car.

As we walked back, thunder rolled in the distance, and in the characteristic Yellowstone fashion, the weather changed quickly and dramatically.  It was raining little balls of fluffy ice resembling Dippin Dots, which the locals call gropple.