It was all about our local coyote pack in 2025, not a single deer or rabbit lingered long enough within range of the compost pile cam to trigger the shutter. Instead, the luxuriously pelted wild dogs ventured forth regularly and fearlessly, at all hours of the night and day, helping themselves, it seems, to veggies thrown on the heap as well as, presumably, the many rabbits that must be nearby given all the tracks in the snow. A neighbour’s dog was caught on cam a few times but to protect his identity I won’t show the evidence. Instead, I’ll start with a different pair of local denizens:
On to the main event. I don’t know if it’s the same coyote getting older, fur getting thicker and more luxuriant, but here are the four best shots last year, including one with an end rot-afflicted tomato in the mouth taken on August 13.
These are Eastern coyotes, Canis latrans var., the only coyote species in Ontario, and are apparently a hybrid between Western coyote and Eastern wolf, sometimes called a coywolf in these parts. While thought of as carnivorous, they’re omnivorous, as these photos show, eating whatever is easily and seasonably available. Their howls and yipping after dark, while quite romantic when one is safely indoors, can, and I say this from experience, be quite disconcerting when alone outside. I imagine rabbits and mice and fawns in spring feel the same way…
County Gardening 
They are beautiful creatures Chris. I suppose they are used to the winters. That winter coat does look warm, but I still feel sorry for all the animals having to survive icy weather and trying not to get eaten themselves!
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Yeah, as much as I whine about rabbits munching on some much in my garden I feel for them when the winter is long, like this year, and when I hear coyotes howling at night…
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These are some gorgeous coyotes! Your mention of the wolf/coyote interbreeding is especially interesting, since the same thing seems to be taking place on Galveston Island between Texas’s red wolf and coyotes. Reports of exceptionally large coyotes have been coming in for several years, and this article finally popped up. A friend who lives on Galveston’s west end has been seeing them, and doesn’t let her dog roam freely any more!
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Coyotes are regularly seen in downtown Toronto, a city of almost three million not including an additional five million folks in the burbs…they come downtown via ravines and other wild corridors and munch on small unattended dogs and, presumably, cats. One reason why my two cats are strictly indoors!
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Great captures, Chris. We’re thinking of getting a trail cam, too. We know from tracks we have lots of visitors, but it’d be nice to see them. What camera do you use?
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Egads I don’t know off hand…I’ll look it up in the morning…the quality is good, mainly for daylight shots, but I find there’s such a delay between the sensors sensing something and the shutter snapping…it also has a video setting which I’ve not tried…
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So much wildlife. Compost is quite an attractor…here, too. Blue Jays like the eggshells. I actually don’t like going outside when it’s dark, so I won’t have any encounters with 4-legged furries.
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I didn’t know that about blue Jays…perhaps that’s why they congregate in the back field in spring and fall…
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I wonder what dines in my compost heap. There is a tortoise habitat under it..? The coyotes look quite healthy. You make me want one of these cameras..my dog is a similar omnivore, he loves fruit, even oranges.
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Oranges! That’s novel! One of our labs loved bananas, corn on the cob (nibbled from the cob while we were holding the cob) and watermelon, also while we held a slice. But citrus? No way!
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I know. I have never had a dog that didn’t recoil from citrus. This one loves mango and oranges. The only thing he wouldn’t eat is celery!
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😆😆😆
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Well you know how it gets stuck between your teeth…
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Lol.. that must be it!
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