Meet Mr. Shiff T. Coyote. Not sure if he is related to the infamous Wile E. Coyote or not. A road runner does live at Bear Thicket so you just never know for sure. Mr. Shiff T. might be a long lost relative.

In any event, he mostly keeps to himself and is not often seen in Bear Thicket. However, when he gets together with his buddies at night he can make quite a racket. All the yipping and wailing can be very eerie sounding. It is said coyotes can immitate wounded animals in order to draw prey into an area.

One particular moring before the sun broke, our dogs started barking intently. They are kept within a fenced back yard, so I don't worry about them running off after some critter. Drifting in and out of a deep sleep, I could sense there was lots of running and commotion, but I tried to ignore it. At dawn, I finally rose out of bed and went to see what was going on. Of course by then, everything had died down and there was nothing more to see or hear.

I did have a game camera set up close to the house though. Later that morning, I collected the storage disc from the camera. When I viewed the pictures on my computer, I could see what had been riling up the dogs.....this coyote. Luckily for me and maybe the dogs, old Shiff T. was by himself and didn't have his pack along for courage.

There was also an instance a couple of years ago, where four coyotes were showing themselves at dusk in the tree line behind the house. I went for my shotgun, but had to walk half way across the yard before they would leave. They were scoping out the dogs and pondering the fence, no doubt. I fired a couple of parting shells into the air to ward them off. I guess that worked for a while as I didn't see any up close to the house for some time.

I have been trying to get a good audio recording of coyotes wailing to use as a ringtone on my cell phone. I hear them in the distance frequently, but no luck on anything nearby. I am waiting patiently!

If there are any coyote affectionados out there, here is a cool coyote picture. Not sure if this is Mr. Shiff, but the resemblance is striking don't you think?