dog days

We spotted a coyote a couple of nights ago. We're thinking it may be what was attached to the eyes watching us from the wooded hill a few weeks back. We thought it odd that there weren't any other critters out and about but seeing the loping grey form heading toward a field told us why.

I took my camera out one early evening to shoot a few of the critter hangouts and realized the scenery is incredibly boring by daylight. It is only when night descends that it becomes alive. A brief rainstorm passed through last night and left a faint haze and a low cloud cover backlit by a quarter moon. We saw another small opossum running the length of the plastic construction fence, probably looking for a place to crawl under. It didn't find an opening and eventually turned and ran back, apparently still searching. Somehow all the fields were mowed in the same week, so there's not much ground cover left.

You can see this field next to the warehouse looks pretty barren but it must be a great source of food. This is Pepe's field. The trees way back on the left side are plantings that edge the parking lot. Earlier in the summer they were a symphony of mockingbird calls, but the birds have been silent for at least a month.


This is where we saw an owl swoop down to snatch its dinner from the concrete. We've kept an eye out for rodents but still haven't seen any. Usually there are at least 2 or 3 kildeers running around on the parking lot, pretending it's a beach, I guess.