I stepped down onto the sandbar at Beaver Point last night and found myself in the middle of a coyote convention.
Click on a photo in the gallery to enlarge in a slide show.
This one took off on its own stepping over piles of trees and sticks left by the beavers.
He had to take a break to eat some grass and make silly faces while chomping on the grass. Click on the gallery for to enlarge the photos in a slide show.
Vultures on their break
Skeptics no concern
Spirits dissolved in daylight
The dead can wait their turn
Nighthawks played in streaming sunlight
Teasing out blue moon
Thunder sounded unseen strikes
Branches broken fell asunder
Fractured limbs will never heal
Distant sirens temptress sighs
Coyotes mournful cries
Hummers feed on orange blossoms
Hairstreaks purple feed on yellow
Rubbing flanges one up one down
Attached to shades of blue
A Predator took the bait
Wild moon
Saturn & Jupiter in the Tangle Heart Tree. I had to get way back into the wilds of the dark bosque with coyotes and chupacabras nipping at my heels to get the shot.
I made my way back onto the levy at the same time as the coyotes.
There were two of them and they paid little attention to me even though we were close to each other. After I lightened up the photo, I could see the coyote on the left had a bad case of mange.
I started walking towards the coyotes. They took one last look before they scurried into the bosque.
Crow flying under the quarter moon.
Saturn and Jupiter through the trees. They are supposed to conjoin in three days.
If you didn’t know coyotes walk on water, now you do.
Tomorrow is Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas. I wrote a version of the Twelve Days of Christmas using the bosque animals that starts with the 12th day of bosque Christmas. Special guest Suzette Presti was gracious enough to do the vocals. Enjoy.
The Twelfth Day of Bosque Christmas
Lyrics by Timothy Price
Vocals: Suzette Presti
Arrangement: Timothy Price
Guitar, bass, percussion: Timothy Price
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
Twelve coyotes crooning
Eleven flickers flitting
Ten finches feeding
Nine seagulls sailing
Eight badgers burrowing
Seven cats a purring
Six crows a cawing
Five beaver slaps
Four geese honking
Three cranes in flight
Two owls to hoot and
A pterodactyl in the Tangle-Heart Tree.
Coyote (Canis latrans)
I recorded coyotes yipping and howling in the bosque and wrote a song to go with the canine chorale. It was dark when they went off on their bosque flashmob; however, whenever the coyotes start yipping and howling right at sundown we never see them as they are hidden in the brush and undergrowth in the bosque. The coyotes do flashmob howling quite often, and they sound close and often howl from all sides. I don’t have videos of coyotes; therefore, I used photos I’ve done of coyotes, plus videos of me and the guitars I played on the song.
About the guitars. I finished building the Black Tele last week. I built it with standard Tele pickups, so it has a nice twangy sound to it. The blonde jazz guitar is a Guild A-150B with a DeArmond Rhythm Chief 1000 floating pickup.
COYOTES
Lyrics and Music by Timothy Price
Coyotes
howling in the night
Canine chorus
Offers up a fright
Binomial chorale
Reverbs through the trees
Like a bosque flashmob
Surround sound and for free
Dusk falls
Latrans he rejoices
Yipping, screeching, howls
A cacophony of voices
I was walking back from Beaver Point, when I almost got sideswiped by a coyote that came flying out of the bushes, and ran across the trail about a foot in front of me, before it quickly disappeared in the bushes on the other side of the trail. It came by too fast and too close for me to photograph it. However, another coyote soon followed at break neck speed, but it was farther away, so I was able to get one shot of it as it crossed the trail and leaped into the brush leaving a puff of dust behind on take off. A third coyote ran out of the brush onto the edge of the levee on its way across the trail into the weeds. I was able to get three shots of the third coyote before it got swallowed up by the brush. I don’t know what they were running from, but they were running at full speed.
I went for a walk in the bosque at sunset, and caught the pink on the Sandias — there was not a cloud in the sky. I headed north after sunset and ran into two coyotes on the trail. They perked up when they saw me, then high-tailed it in the opposite direction. Then I saw Virginia perched on a branch. It was nice to see Virginia, I hadn’t seen her in months.
A couple we often see in the bosque, told me they had just discovered the nesting place of a pair of owls last night. When I got to the nesting area a few minutes later, there were two owls to be seen — a larger owl in a cottonwood, and another, smaller owl, in an elm tree next to the cottonwood. The larger female was out taking a break, I presumed. She was hooting up a storm on her perch in the cottonwood. The smaller owl was perched on a limb, a silent sentry, very alert, guarding the area. The sun had been down for fifteen minutes or so, forcing me to bump up my ISO to 3200 to get a somewhat sensible shutter speed. As I was photographing the owls, a chorus of coyotes started howling from the undergrowth all around where I was standing beneath the owls. The scene became surreal as I was standing in a small clearing, darkness falling all around, the owl hooting from above, and coyotes yipping and howling in surround sound.
Off Center & Not Even 