Red Fox “Smiling”, Hunting And Pouncing On Prey
Maybe, just maybe, foxes can’t really smile but they sure as hell can jump. Yesterday in the mountains this one proved it.
Tag: pounce
A Montana Coyote On The Prowl
One afternoon on our latest Montana trip we decided to do a little “sploring” (as we call it) and investigate some country new to us so we spent several hours cruising the back roads on the south side of the Centennial Mountains. We found a beautiful mountain valley very close to the continental divide that provided a variety of habitats but few birds.
But it did give me my best photographic opportunity ever with a Montana coyote.
A Vole Makes A Coyote Pay a Price For Its Meal
Yesterday morning I witnessed quite the little drama on Antelope Island. Two of them, really. This post will attempt to document what I saw. I lost sharp focus on a couple of these shots and some of the action was far away but I hope the images I include here will give you a feeling for all the excitement that unfolded. Going north on the ranch road we spotted four coyotes. Three of them crossed the road and walked slowly west while one of them left the area. At first I didn’t think they were in hunting mode, rather that they had a destination in mind. But this one detected a vole under the 6″ deep snow. From its body language it was obvious that it was able to hear the vole, even through all that snow. I’ve deliberately cropped this image to include the second coyote in the background. Notice in this shot, and the next two, that the background coyote is intensely watching something in front of and above it (there’s a relatively high mountain in that direction). Coyote #1 begins a pounce toward the source of the sound. The next image in the burst. It lands in the snow but apparently missed the vole. It stopped to listen again for a few seconds then pounced one more time. With its nose buried, it pushed through the snow like a snowplow for several feet. I believe that it was following the scent of the…
A Couple Of Intereresting Coyote Hunting Techniques
New Year’s morning on Antelope Island was a cloudy, low-light affair. It turned mostly sunny as we left for home in late morning and on the causeway we passed flocks of birders on their way to the island for their first day of birding in the New Year. I couldn’t help but notice the irony – us photographers who needed good light didn’t get any and the birders who don’t, did… But despite the low light I was able to photograph two coyote hunting techniques that I thought were interesting. 1/800, f/8, ISO 500, 100-400 @ 150 mm, natural light This coyote was on the edge of a large hill overlooking the frozen shoreline of the Great Salt Lake far below. I was very close to the animal but it was so intent on scanning the marshy area below for prey that it simply ignored me. At one point it stood on its hind legs with its front legs on a large, snow-covered boulder to give it an even more elevated view of the hunting grounds down below. I hoped that it would look back at me but it never did, though I think this pose, with just enough of the muzzle in view to show the direction the coyote was looking, well illustrates the hunting behavior. I was pleasantly surprised with one element of this photo. I was much too close to this coyote to use my 500mm lens so I had grabbed my other 7D with the 100-400 attached and backed the zoom down to 150mm. …
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A Montana Coyote On The Prowl
One afternoon on our latest Montana trip we decided to do a little “sploring” (as we call it) and investigate some country new to us so we spent several hours cruising the back roads on the south side of the Centennial Mountains. We found a beautiful mountain valley very close to the continental divide that provided a variety of habitats but few birds.
But it did give me my best photographic opportunity ever with a Montana coyote.
A Vole Makes A Coyote Pay a Price For Its Meal
Yesterday morning I witnessed quite the little drama on Antelope Island. Two of them, really. This post will attempt to document what I saw. I lost sharp focus on a couple of these shots and some of the action was far away but I hope the images I include here will give you a feeling for all the excitement that unfolded. Going north on the ranch road we spotted four coyotes. Three of them crossed the road and walked slowly west while one of them left the area. At first I didn’t think they were in hunting mode, rather that they had a destination in mind. But this one detected a vole under the 6″ deep snow. From its body language it was obvious that it was able to hear the vole, even through all that snow. I’ve deliberately cropped this image to include the second coyote in the background. Notice in this shot, and the next two, that the background coyote is intensely watching something in front of and above it (there’s a relatively high mountain in that direction). Coyote #1 begins a pounce toward the source of the sound. The next image in the burst. It lands in the snow but apparently missed the vole. It stopped to listen again for a few seconds then pounced one more time. With its nose buried, it pushed through the snow like a snowplow for several feet. I believe that it was following the scent of the…
A Couple Of Intereresting Coyote Hunting Techniques
New Year’s morning on Antelope Island was a cloudy, low-light affair. It turned mostly sunny as we left for home in late morning and on the causeway we passed flocks of birders on their way to the island for their first day of birding in the New Year. I couldn’t help but notice the irony – us photographers who needed good light didn’t get any and the birders who don’t, did… But despite the low light I was able to photograph two coyote hunting techniques that I thought were interesting. 1/800, f/8, ISO 500, 100-400 @ 150 mm, natural light This coyote was on the edge of a large hill overlooking the frozen shoreline of the Great Salt Lake far below. I was very close to the animal but it was so intent on scanning the marshy area below for prey that it simply ignored me. At one point it stood on its hind legs with its front legs on a large, snow-covered boulder to give it an even more elevated view of the hunting grounds down below. I hoped that it would look back at me but it never did, though I think this pose, with just enough of the muzzle in view to show the direction the coyote was looking, well illustrates the hunting behavior. I was pleasantly surprised with one element of this photo. I was much too close to this coyote to use my 500mm lens so I had grabbed my other 7D with the 100-400 attached and backed the zoom down to 150mm. …