Lone Coyote

This morning, at one of my usual posts, the kitchen sink, I caught sight of a lone coyote. At first I thought it was a deer because it was so far away and I just saw it out of my peripheral vision and wasn't really paying attention. The next time I glanced up I noticed that it was too short to be a deer, so I took a better look. It wasn't a deer. Was it a dog, perhaps? Nope.... it was a coyote.

I got out my camera with the 30X lens. Standing in the dining room, I snapped a few quick pictures. The three shots I took were lousy. For one thing, it was still early morning, so the light was not good. The first picture, above, was not quite focused. Or perhaps the window glass distorted my view. In any case, my motion had caught the eye of the American jackal. 

It looked right at me as I snapped another photo, which unfortunately was blurrier than the first. Maybe it was his motion. Maybe it was me. But whatever the case, he decided to move on. My clearest shot was of the prairie wolf loping away up the path that my husband had just made last weekend with his flail mower. 

Then the coyote struck off across the ridge in the hay field and disappeared on the other side headed toward the lake. The ridge he disappeared over is on the right side of the photograph below.

When I spotted the coyote, it was stopped near the end of  the "peninsula" of woods that juts out from the right side of the the picture below.

To give you a better idea of how far from the house that was, the next photo was taken while standing in the yard just behind the house.

I took the photos of the hay field last week because I was enamored of the sky and clouds, so the mown path is not in them, unfortunately. But you at least get the idea of how far the coyote was from the house. He was closer to the horse barn. So I'm glad I've been good about closing up our geriatric goat securely!