I went for a walk this evening after supper. At dusk, I was strolling through an affluent neighborhood when a Coyote appeared from between two houses and crossed in front of me, about 30 feet away. When it got to the other side of the street, it stopped on the sidewalk and stared at me.
Normally, when I see Coyotes, they are scraggly woebegone-looking beasts, but this was a large, muscular, beautiful animal. I walked along my sidewalk until I was directly across from it. I stopped and stared back. After a few seconds, it walked about 10 feet farther along its sidewalk. I did the same on mine. We stared at each other again. Then it walked a little farther. We repeated this four or five times. Finally it turned and disappeared down into a swale in somebody’s side yard. I walked on, but after a few steps I turned around. The coyote had stopped and come back. It was on the lip of the rise, staring at me again. I walked toward it and got two or three steps into the street before it turned and walked back into the yard. Even then it stopped when it got to the back of the yard and watched me until I walked on and could see it no longer.
When I got home, I drove my daughter to high-school group at a local church. On the way home a Red Fox ran across the road in front of my car when I was just a few houses down the street from home. It came so close I had to brake to avoid hitting it. It stopped in someone’s yard and gave me a good look.
I didn’t have my camera for either of these encounters, of course.
I’m pretty sure this breaks my all-time record for most number of wild-dog species spotted in a single day.