Last Tuesday and Thursday, the Eastern Coyote was seen again in Central Park. The videos show a close encounter with an Eastern Phoebe and a Brown Rat. Luckily for both animals, the coyote was more interested in resting than hunting in the afternoon.
The Eastern Coyote continues to be seen along the shore of The Lake in Central Park. I had an enjoyable afternoon watching her from the other side of a bay. She really is a beautiful animal.
The Eastern Coyote was found using a cliff along The Lake as a den today. It was in a nicely protected spot away from people and dogs.
The animal slept most of the time, but a protest march, a very bad singer walking his dogs, and a hail storm did disturb the owl. Life in the Big Apple!
After it was dark, and much darker than when our owls fly out the Eastern Coyote quickly left and headed south. It was gone and out of sight within seconds.
While watching the Snowy Owl in Central Park, we saw the Eastern Coyote again. Something unsettled all of the Canada Geese that were on the east side of the North Meadow, and that caused the Snowy Owl to move to the western side. As we followed her as she flew, we saw the Eastern Coyote.
The Eastern Coyote moved north and then jumped the fence. I caught up with it again and the western side of the North Meadow behind field 3.
I thought it was special to have a sighting last week, but having another so soon was just fantastic.
While looking for Central Park’s Snowy Owl, which has stayed much longer than expected, we ran across an Eastern Coyote.
It was in the North Meadow, and fairly relaxed before deciding to bolt northeast towards the compost heap.
Some resources about Eastern Coyotes:
You may have seen some news about the Coyote that’s been seen in Central Park lately. We’ve had sightings consistently over the last few years in the park. Late winter is a common time for sightings. Many young Coyotes are pushed out of their family units in the late winter, and a few have been wandering into Manhattan each year.
I followed a Coyote in 2010 and had a wonderful experience. At the time, we’d had some negative outcomes with previous Coyotes in the Manhattan, and I wrote about the issues. The questions at the time was do you try and capture the Coyote or just let it stay. Given the experiences of other cities, the answer seems to be just let it be.
If you use the category search on the right, and select Central Park Coyote 2010, you’ll see what I wrote back then.
A new resource that might be helpful if you’re interested in Urban Coyotes is the Gotham Coyote Project website.