To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.

~Mary Davis

One afternoon back in early September I decided to take a short hike in a spot we have walked may times over the years. I like this walk in the late day sun as I often see various birds in the shrubs along the creek. As I crossed through a gap in the willows on a well-worn path used by bison for perhaps decades, a movement caught my eye on a far hillside. Coyotes! Perhaps three individuals made their way quickly down slope through the sagebrush and stopped at a mound of dirt. I dropped to my knees and soon realized I was looking at a den site and the pups had run down to it when they saw me. I could see two pups sitting at the den entrance. They looked my way for a minute or so and then, to my surprise, two of them went back up to the top of the hill.

On my walk out, a pronghorn buck came over a small ridge along my path. I stopped and it continued walking beyond me and started to cross through the line of willows along the creek. It hesitated, came back out and tried another spot. It didn’t seem to like that one either (they both were muddy with deep prints from bison crossings). To my surprise, it came out and trotted straight toward me before realizing that I was still there. He veered off and walked at a brisk pace around and behind me and crossed the willows in the dry gap I had taken earlier.

Melissa had been out of town on my first trip where I stumbled upon the den site. After she returned, she went with me twice and she brought her Swarovski spotting scope and Phone Skope adapter and captured some video with her iPhone. The pups were relaxed the whole time once we sat down.

–Melissa got this great video clip of two of the pups in half-hearted play

–Most of the time, there were two pups laying up on the ridge. The other two were either laying down in the sagebrush or in the den

–You can see the difference between this video with my camera and 500mm (and cropped considerably) and the previous ones using the scope and phone. While filming, a group of magpies flew in and landed all around the pup on the hill. You see the pup flatten himself. I wasn’t sure if it was afraid or thinking of catching one of the birds. Finally, there seemed to be just too many of them and the pup left.

I went back a few times by myself after Melissa started attending a week-long online nature journaling conference. I took her scope and phone adapter and got several minutes of video (I have since bought an adapter for my scope). As I approached the site I would stop at one point far away and scan the area with binoculars and at least one pup was always visible laying on top of the ridge. I didn’t want to disturb them if adults were present or if the pups seemed afraid (I never did see an adult at the site). I also tried to not attract any attention from other people in the pullouts as I certainly didn’t want a crowd going up to that area. After the second trip out to see the den, it seemed the pups just looked at me as another part of the landscape. They stopped going down to the den entrance and just remained on the ridge. They watched me until I sat down and then they resumed what they were doing, which was mainly laying down looking north, presumably waiting on their parents to return with food. I have a lot of video clips with Melissa’s scope of pups sleeping with an occasional ear wiggle or brief look around. I usually stayed about an hour and left at sunset (many of which were gorgeous). The pups would glance my way and then lay back down as I left.

On one of my early visits I saw a group of people on the bridge as I approached my parked car. I figured it could be either otters in the river or perhaps a black bear. One person saw me walking towards them and motioned for me to look to my right. I couldn’t see anything because of a slight hill between my vantage point and the river. She then said, “bear”. I asked if it was a black bear or a grizzly. The reply – grizzly! So, I moved off the path and headed to my left and quickly joined the group on the road and saw a beautiful grizzly wandering along the river eating berries as it went. The bear then climbed the hill and crossed over the path I had been walking just minutes before. The crowd moved towards their vehicles or the other side of the bridge and the bear eventually managed to cross the road and disappear behind a ridge along the river.

Two evenings later was the last time I saw the pups. They were sleeping as usual with just a glance my way when I arrived and departed. I went back a few more times, including two trips in the morning, and glassed the area from afar and saw no activity. From what I have read, coyote pups may linger at the den into September but soon leave and follow the adults as they hunt or strike off to find their own territories . These pups looked a bit young to me to be out on their own, but we did see some young coyotes a couple of weeks later out hunting within a mile or two of the den, so who knows.

One interesting thing I saw at the site was part of a pronghorn head – a furred piece of skull with one horn, an adult male horn. I saw one pup tugging at it and carrying it a short distance as sort of a plaything. I know wolf pups often have bones or antlers as play toys near their dens. Makes me wonder how that pronghorn met his demise because I think it would be rare for coyotes (or even wolves) to take down a healthy adult.

Over the two weeks I was privileged to observe these pups, I saw them play, sleep, watch intently as some magpies walked around their den area, and look off in the distance, presumably keeping an eye out for an adult returning with a meal. Here’s hoping they are doing well wherever they are on this majestic landscape.