SCHIESS: Pilfering a well-earned lunch in midair
Published at | Updated atA movement in the tall marsh grass caught my eye as I was working a line of brush along a dry creek bed. I stopped, watched and finally a lone coyote raised it head and put its nose skyward to test for strange odors drifting in the southwestern breeze. It did not detect me as I was downwind, hidden behind a small willow.
I watched as it worked the tall grass of the meadow, pausing to stare toward a howling family pack upwind that I could not see. All of a sudden its nose went down with ears coming to attention. With three loping bounds it jumped high in the air then disappeared in the grass. “Success,” I thought as I saw a rodent tossed above the vegetation then caught in a gapping mouth and swallowed whole.
The wild dog see-sawed back and forth through the grass looking for more fast food when I noticed a female Northern Harrier circling above the predator. It was not too long before another hapless rodent was caught, tossed into the air – but did not become the captor’s dinner.
The harrier had picked off the airborne lunch and was headed for some brush to enjoy the pilfered hot meal. The coyote had a disgusted look on its snout, but soon went back to its hunting. It had probably happened before.
Another female harrier showed up, hoping for its free meal, but this became not a cat and mouse game but a canine – rodent – raptor game. No more playing with its food for each time the coyote would capture a rodent, it would lay down when the harrier went into a dive and swallow its still wiggling prey.
Twice the harrier would land behind the coyote only to fly off when the canine was done playing the bone-crusher game. After about 40 minutes of watching this game, a Great-horned owl landed near me and I spooked the coyote as I worked to get some pictures of one of my preferred birds. It was time for me to try to find another encounter to record and enjoy as the coyote topped a ridge.
After getting pictures of the owl and some white-tailed deer I headed back to the truck, I wondered if the coyote and the harriers had a symbiotic relationship. At other times I have observed raptors and ravens circling over hunting coyotes, but never thought much about it. I did not observe the coyote attempt to attack the birds or the birds aggressive to the coyote, it just pause and then would go back, looking for more rodents.
I will let the wildlife biologists figure out all the why’s and if’s; I want to observe their wildness and try to get a few pictures of them in action.
The keys of observing a coyote and some harriers are to turn the TV off, go for a drive, leave the truck, be very observant, locate them from a distance and work close enough to them as you can by limiting your movements. Sometimes you will get lucky.
Living the Wild Life is brought to you by The Healing Sanctuary.