Coyote Yipps is Janet Kessler’s blog about urban coyotes.  Known as the Coyote Lady, she’s been photographing and writing about  coyotes in and around San Francisco for the last eleven years.  

Photo Credit: TonysTakes Flickr via Compfight cc

On a winter morning a few years back, I watched out my kitchen window as a coyote loped up the driveway, crossed the road, then stopped, turning to look behind him. A moment later his mate followed. After a brief greeting (if they made any sound, I couldn’t hear it from my vantage point), they took off together, leaving tracks in the snow as they disappeared from view up the hill and into the trees.

Maybe these are the same two that I have sometimes heard at night, yipping, howling, and barking.  Coyotes are the loudest of my wild neighbors.  The bobcats and bears are mostly silent as they pounce on mice or strip piñon nuts out of pine cones. I always assumed the noisy coyotes were in hot pursuit of a rabbit or roaming house cat, but it turns out I was probably wrong.

In this recent video posted on Coyote Yipps a female coyote is calling her mate.  It takes a few minutes, but eventually he shows up.  Her calls and his response sound much like what I have often heard coming from a stand of trees in my backyard or the nearby arroyo.  Next time I’ll listen more closely.