Sunday, May 29, 2011

Wary Coyote

I wanted to title this post "War E. Coyote"...a delicious pun on the full name of the well-known Loony Tunes character.  Unfortunately...no matter how I tried to tweak it...the blog post title kept coming off like a coyote that wanted to go to war.

So I gave up.
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Anyhoo, the camera at my Otter Latrine set caught another example of coyote aversion to the red LEDs of an infrared camera trap.  On April 13, a 'yote comes past from behind the camera.  This is the direction most of them are heading when I get pictures of them at this camera trap set.  What this means is that they probably don't notice the red glow from the infrared LEDs. 


If they are looking at the camera, they'll see the red glow.  As I've reported elsewhere, 'yotes seem to show alot of aversion to this red glow (although they apparently acclimate, see Coyote Cams posted on February Feb. 19th, 2011). 

The individual (or an individual) comes back alittle while later, but is facing into the camera.  I think this might be a different 'yote actually, as it appears alittle smaller than the first (although this could just be the camera angle).

Everything seems fine and then....you can almost hear the comedic exaggerated automobile braking noise.
Above: Whoa!  What the hell is that?!

And then he's gone.  No 'yotes have passed by this camera since.


3 comments:

  1. I've just returned from a week in Namibia where I have initiated a wildlife survey using camera traps. Of all the mammals the jackals seemed most wary of the cameras with their red LEDs. So I guess it's a 'dog family' thing.

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  2. Thanks, Samantha and Jeremy!

    Jeremy, I think there's some truth to that. Canines just seem wary. The cats around here are too, at least initially. I guess that's one means by which extant dogs today have managed to avoid extinction (to-date, anyways): being wary and adaptable.

    Looking forward to seeing some of your jackal pics!

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