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We finally got some cold weather - it was thirteen below zero last night, and has just made it back to
zero degrees Fahrenheit right now. I am going to head west out across Field #1 and get a view of
the road from the hillside you see in the distance.
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I am heading for the snowy bald area in the distance. Part
way there I will scare up a red-tailed hawk who was sitting in the pines.
Destroyed late 2007, Eastridge High School is being built here.
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Here walking up the bare hillside are coyote tracks I encountered. I haven't heard the coyotes
howling when I walk late at night since December. There is a pack of them active in this
area - one really big one is as big as a husky - I wonder if he is part dog. I hate the coyotes
at night - they get in a triangle and howl across the landscape to one another. It's unsettling
in the blackness of night. During the spring, summer, and fall, coyotes spend much time in the
fields hunting mice and pocket gophers. During the winter months some field mice are eaten but
they represent a minor item in the diet over most of the winter range, where other foods are
more available.
Above far left shows the pattern of the coyote paw in the snow,
above center shows the gait (racehorse like right here) and above right is from the
Internet showing definitively what a coyote track looks like. Above center also shows
a man footprint in the lower left corner - it's the author's.
Return to Animals
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The view from snowy bald area back across the gravel pit toward the gravel road.
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I've walked through west the pine trees and circled around toward the West Farm. Here is
a view of the West Farm from the northwest.
Barn, silo, house, and all outbuildings except yellow shed destroyed 2007
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