Wild Life / eastern coyote

in-between

Hello, friends — I started writing this on New Year’s Eve, those few hours in the in-between, when we have one foot in the past and one in the future. I’ve been thinking a lot about the in-between, about what it means to be between two things. So, let’s begin 2025 with the eastern coyote, a hybrid evolving between coyote and wolf. As always, please add your comments, if you’ve seen a coyote, or any wild things, in the here or there of daily life. — Amy Jean

Last spring, I was at home cleaning up around dusk when I had the feeling of a new presence nearby. I looked out the window and saw a large yellowish creature standing still, looking across the yard into the woods. I thought it was our neighbor’s big dog, but then I looked at its eyes, sharp-yellow and knowing, and felt the slow-motion clicking that happens when your perception readjusts. It was a wild creature: it was a coyote. It stood there while I desperately tried to hold it with my gaze. The coyote’s stance was grand and its muscles relaxed but ready. After a few moments, it trotted off into the trees.

Over the years, I’ve heard coyotes in the not-too-far distance. They make a terrible racket, howling and carrying on, yapping and calling. They vocalize with each other in a hair-raising register that is haunted and hellish the first time you hear it. When I learned that the howls and yips are more of a family get-together, singing-around-the-campfire kind of interaction, then I no longer found the sounds so hair-raising. Now I’m glad to hear them out there, having their noisy party.

The eastern coyote is a variant of the western coyote, a creature I knew fairly well from my adolescence in Arizona. There, they appear more easily along desert roads, smaller in size and closer in effect to foxes. I had no idea that eastern coyotes were so different, so much larger and commanding and secretive. The difference is that eastern coyotes are a hybrid mix with wolves, first appearing only 200 years ago or so.

In the nineteenth century, as the gray wolf was extirpated across the United States, the coyote, whose historical range was westward, took advantage of the spaces left behind. Coyotes expanded their range eastward, and, when they eventually encountered wolves in the north (and domestic dogs along the way), they interbred. The first of these hybrids were around the Great Lakes, and then the coyotes expanded further east, creating the largest known mammalian hybrid zone.

Let’s pause here to enjoy the distinction of this “largest known mammalian hybrid zone.” We are living it now, with these creatures who are evolving under our noses. Eastern coyotes are the key species of the in-between. They are making a space, defying definitions, denying the yes/no, off/on systems and hard outlines that exist only in human constructs. They are living their lives and howling with abandon.

As we enter 2025, I wish us more of this hybrid energy and the ability to find comfort in the undefined, the less understood, the fully unknown, and the in-between, cheered on by the eastern coyote’s maniacal howls of joy, kinship, and evolution.

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Coyote links—

• The eastern coyote (Canis latrans var.) is smart and adaptable and does well in green spaces between humans, within cities and suburbs (Chicago, for example). Depending on the season they’ll eat small prey animals and rodents, bugs, and berries. They are generally afraid of people, and it’s best to keep them that way. They are not a distinct species but rather a variant of the western coyote, so don’t call them “coywolf,” even if it’s fun to say.

• Coyotes are monogamous and mate for life. Their howling-yipping sessions are a family group of parents and pups, maybe 5 or 6 animals, though it sounds like more. They vocalize to communicate and define their territory, and also in response to sirens (these are western coyotes but the same incredible sounds, via YouTube). More examples collected by Janet Kessler, here.

• I’ve always said coyote as three syllables “kai-oat-ee,” but some people say “kai-oat.” Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty made a pronunciation map, here. The word came to English through Mexican Spanish from the Nahuatl word coyōtl in the mid-1700s [Merriam-Webster]. It means “trickster”—and there’s more to say about the western coyote and mythology, for another day.

• In the meantime, here are three minutes of Wile E. Coyote using roller skis to try and catch the Roadrunner. I love that his bright idea was roller skis. [YouTube]

Animal encounters in recent comments—

• Thanks for your tales of hawks, owls, and possums in playgrounds - ! Please comment if you’ve seen any creatures lately (or you can reply to this email). I’ve mainly been enjoying the juncos who do not mind the cold.

• Plus this video of a barred owl landing on a Christmas tree in someone’s house last week. [YouTube]

Also—

• My eastern coyote drawing is for sale. Some of the proceeds will go to the Wolf Conservation Center.

• My exhibition Somelight continues at Jennifer Terzian Gallery in Litchfield, Connecticut through January 18. Let me know and I’ll meet you there.

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Wild Life #46 / this newsletter is a place to learn about the life around us, one singing coyote at a time. I do this because I’m not sure what to do about the millions of species in danger of extinction. It means something to see and enjoy the life around us. Thanks for reading and sharing.

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