{"id":53343,"date":"2017-11-07T05:30:03","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T12:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=53343"},"modified":"2017-11-07T05:30:03","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T12:30:03","slug":"coyote-taking-a-stroll-along-the-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/07\/coyote-taking-a-stroll-along-the-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"Coyote Taking A Stroll Along The Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

A quick break from feathers to fur. And speculation about the reason for\u00a0an apparent recent decline in the\u00a0Antelope Island coyote population.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/1000, f\/5.6, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

A week ago I encountered this coyote on the causeway to Antelope Island only moments before dawn. It was headed west on the beach with the island as its apparent goal so I suspect it had been hunting the causeway during the night.<\/p>\n

When the coyote reached this spit of rocks jutting out into the water it walked to the far north\u00a0point and then turned to the east just as the sun was beginning to peek over the nearby Wasatch Mountains.\u00a0It stared intensely in\u00a0that direction for long enough that I was able to see the light change rapidly on\u00a0both the\u00a0coyote\u00a0and the rocks as the sun crested the peaks.<\/p>\n

I like to think\u00a0the coyote\u00a0was actually enjoying the sunrise and that wouldn’t surprise me in the least. It’s generally a spectacular sight and why wouldn’t a coyote appreciate a view like that?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/800, f\/5.6, ISO 1250, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

As soon as the orb of the sun was over the mountains the coyote continued its trek along the beach toward the island.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/a><\/p>\n

For many years I could almost count on seeing coyotes on the island each\u00a0time I visited but for the past two years or so I’ve rarely seen them and I don’t know why. Hunting coyotes on the island is illegal and a couple of years ago I asked a park ranger if the state park had been practicing some kind of coyote control. He said that they hadn’t.<\/p>\n

Occasionally a coyote would even “smile” at me. I miss these coyote encounters a lot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In previous years coyotes hunting voles was a common sight for visitors who really paid attention.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And the time of year didn’t matter. Coyotes always seem to be hungry and voles…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote<\/p>\n

were always readily available. I often used to see voles scurrying around in the grasses near my pickup while I was photographing birds on the island but in recent years that has been an extremely rare occurrence.<\/p>\n

I can only speculate that the reason for the apparent recent decline in coyote numbers is related to a similar decline in the numbers of voles. Vole populations are naturally cyclic and that kind of boom and bust\u00a0situation would have obvious effects on their predators, especially those who rely heavily or almost exclusively on voles as a food source\u00a0as the island coyotes seem to do.<\/p>\n

I just hope it’s nothing more insidious than that.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And speculation about the reason for an apparent recent decline in the Antelope Island coyote population.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,374,8,392],"tags":[31,401,98,3651,3650,178,311,316],"class_list":["post-53343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-coyotes","category-ecology-and-environment","category-feeding-bird-behaviors","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-canis-latrans","tag-coyote","tag-cyclic-populations","tag-decline-in-coyote-population","tag-hunting","tag-utah-2","tag-voles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/coyote-4635-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-dSn","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}