Attack of the Wild Coyotes

Living on the edge of a national park has its advantages and its moments. You accept the challenge of wild white-tailed deer eating your hostas (and anything else that’s green) and wild cotton-tailed rabbits threatening whatever the deer miss. There’s an occasional encounter with the wild skunk you’ll laugh about five years from now when the smell finally gets out of your house, and the clever raccoons seeking a sweet-treat who manage to wreck havoc on your hummingbird feeders.
The payback is an occasional over-flight by a pair of majestic bald eagles, or witnessing the mating ritual of wild turkeys in an open field. Nothing like uninhibited sex in the early morning to stop traffic.
Last night we had about the best nature can offer in this part of the land. It started at 1:45 AM. A single, distant winnowing howl woke me. At first I thought it was the Eastern screech-owl. I was hoping, at least, because we’ve not heard them this spring and fear the urban sprawl has driven more of these essential predators further afield.
I sat bolt upright as the winnowing rose to a more fevered pitch. The single voice was joined in chorus by another soprano and a couple of altos doing the harmony parts. The rhythm section came alive and soon the whole pack was yipping, barking and crooning to some primeval—make that atavistic—melody. Coyotes! It sounded like all the coyotes in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park had arrived for a sing-along outside our condo. Actually the number was probably closer to six. And the coyote’s cry can have a ventriloquist’s bent to it, making you think they’re in one spot when actually they’re 180 degrees the other direction.
It’s intriguing how the primal, quavering cry of the coyote evokes an equally tingling sensation of primitive danger in humans. When the animal finally emits its short, high-pitched yips, you realize you’ve been holding your breath and begin to relax. The hair on your arms settles down and you stop clinching your teeth. Only then, when you realize you’re safe from attack (they have more to fear from us than we do of them), do you really listen to what this little wolf, as its name from the Aztec language suggests, has to say.
Howling coyotes usually do so in two seasons; January and February when searching for a mate (they mate for life), and September and October when the mother is calling her young and they answer back in unison.
So what was this pack howling about in mid-June? Just for fun, probably. Bunch of guys leaving the watering hole late at night who felt like howling; your basic animal stuff.