| The
Movie Can Wait
Tuesday night in Banff means one thing: cheap movie night.
In the long spring days of mid-June in the Canadian Rockies, that
entails going to see a late show while it's still daylight
outside.
I had planned to meet my friend Jason for a movie and a
burger and left Canmore for Banff at 8 p.m. that night. As I
pulled off the highway exit for Banff twenty minutes later, I noticed something
small and furry race across the grass on my right and dive
into a culvert at the road's edge.
I pulled over and walked cautiously up to the culvert, not
really knowing what to expect inside. I knelt down and
peered into the darkness, but couldn't see a thing.
However, I could certainly SMELL the creatures inside
and it was an obvious odour to me...coyotes! And
judging from the size of the bundle of fur I had seen racing
in there, I realized that I'd stumbled upon some coyote pups.
Adult coyotes often leave their half-grown pups for hours
or even days at a time while they go off and hunt, picking out
an inconspicuous 'temporary den' to house the pups.
These adults had obviously picked this 'den' in the dead of
night, since the location was anything BUT inconspicuous!
A plan quickly began to form in my mind and it had
absolutely nothing to do with seeing a movie...in minutes I
was at Jason's place and the instructions I gave him were
short and sweet, "Movie's off!! Throw on some
grubby clothes and meet me at the car in two
minutes!!"
By 9 pm we were back peering into the culvert again to
see if the pups were still there. Sure enough, we could
see a few pairs of ears sticking up halfway along, so we
backed up and positioned ourselves downwind about fifty metres
from the culvert and watched it like eagles. It began to get
dark just after 10 and with no pups in sight, we called
it a night.
I was up an hour before dawn the next morning, driving into
Banff again with a new plan in mind. I arrived on the
scene and positioned my car off the road so that I wasn't in
the way of traffic, yet still had a great view
of the den. My goal was simply to sit there and
photograph from my car, using the car itself as a blind.
The new strategy worked perfectly for the first hour as the sun
rose...well, ALMOST perfectly -- the only
problem? The pups were nowhere to be seen!
Fantastic light and a photographer that's ready to shoot
mean very little if the animals AREN'T ready to be
photographed!
Regardless, I stuck it out and finally, at about 9 am, a
small two-eared animal stuck its head out of the den ever so
briefly and took a quick look around. Ten seconds later,
the head reappeared and took a slightly longer look around,
then disappeared again.
The third time, the pup popped right up out of the den and
sat there, staring at the big white vehicle making all the
funny noises...the motor drive of my camera was whirring
away! In the first image on the top right, notice just
how alert and upright those little ears are!
The pup walked towards me briefly, then slowly walked back
into the den and didn't re-emerge for almost an hour.
But when it did, it brought the whole clan out in rapid
procession. And for the next two hours, four of the
cutest coyote pups you ever will see entertained me and my
camera. One of the pups had emerald green eyes, two had brown
eyes, and one had bright baby blues (see Looking
Around).
I stayed with the pups until 4 pm that afternoon until
hunger got the better of me. The entire time, other than
two police cars that came to question me about what I was
doing, not a single other car stopped, even though the pups
were out in plain view for all to see!
The next morning I returned to the scene, but right away
noticed that the 'coyote smell' was not as obvious and sure
enough, when I looked into the culvert it was
empty.
I never did see the pups again, but Jason and I did go
catch that movie a few nights later. And since Jason
didn't actually get to see the pups in action the next day, I
figured this was the least I could do...these ones are for
you, buddy!
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