Coyote

No photos today. They would be more gruesome than the ones yesterday. A carrion-eating creature came back last night, dragged the fawn carcass to a new spot, removed the front legs and eat most of the head.

To lighten up this post, I borrow a caption for the title from a Gary Lawson Far Side cartoon that once tickled my children’s fancy and remained a family giggle.

Another carrion-eater torn a big hole in a garbage bag to help himself to the wax moth larva and pollen debris from the bottom board of an out-of-commission beehive. I’d planned to keep that mess until the state bee inspector stops by later this week. Not that he’ll be interested; there is nothing noteworthy about it. But, should our conversation lag. I thought I’d whip it out for show-and-tell.

Tomorrow I’ll report on the annual feeding frenzy of the dragonflies and show you the remaining bee hives in action. The bees from the two strong hives robbed the much-swarmed hive of its honey so I have nothing to harvest for my oatmeal this winter. The bees, however, will have plenty for their oatmeal. Da always said: feed the animals first.

The meadow is keeping wildlife of all stripes well fed.

A blizzard Friday night created a perfect canvas for animal tracks. But for two nights and days, only the birds and I left any marks in the snow. Then this morning I saw tracks. They ran from the fence about 20 feet into the meadow and stopped.

Trekking out to get a better look was hard. The snow came up to my knees. Near the fence, where a row of trees had blocked some of the snow accumulation, the tracks showed distinct toenails, pads and a stride of about a foot. In the deeper snow further from the fence, was a tail imprint. Coyote, I surmise.

Why did the tracks stop a few feet from the fence? On closer look, I see they double back. The coyote had the same problem I had with the deep snow only its legs were half as long. Remembering Winslow Homer’s fox, the coyote must have decided to avoid the deep snow.