Out with the dogs at 3:30 as usual. The sky was clear and beautiful once again, with the Milky Way bright and straight overhead. A quarter moon hung just over the mountains to our northwest, slightly orange. Just to its right and a little higher, Venus shone, so bright and clear that I imagined I could actually see its disk. The Big Dipper is now rotated at that hour so that the “dipper” almost sits on the horizon, right-side up. Just a gorgeous evening sky in the high desert...
The dogs were unperturbed by the chorus of howling, yipping coyotes – there was a pack somewhere quite nearby. I counted at least five individuals, but there were probably more. I don't think they were more than 100 yards away from us, off to our west on the flanks of our neighbor's hill. A dog kennel about a quarter mile north of us joined the coyotes, baying and howling. It was quite a racket! But all four of our dogs were just doing their thing, acting as if they didn't even hear all this noise...
In the midst of the canine cacophony, there was one discordant sound: a turkey, giving its occasional gobbling. Worried, probably, as well he should be. We have quite a few wild turkeys running around our valley, and I bet one of them would make a very nice meal for a pack of coyotes...
It woke me up, it was so noisy. I thought it sounded different, though. Must've been the dog howls mixed in with the coyote howls.
ReplyDeleteJoel
Could you get a nice camera and post some pictures? :) would love to see a 'Yon' type picture of what you see out in the chaparral at 3am
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