The Trickster...

(Photo from exZOOberance!)

No, I'm not talking about that other trickster, Vinokourov. I don't have the words.

I'm talking about that ubiquitous native American trickster, El Coyote. I heard one on my way to work this morning, just as I was leaving the neighborhood. It howled from a drainage ditch along the highway between my neighborhood and the shopping plaza across the road.

Coyotes were a common sight and sound here before all the development. Just behind my neighbor's house, a female denned in a bush pile and raised her pups. We saw them nearly every evening, and if we didn't see them, we heard them. But that was nearly 20 years ago.

Since then, more houses have arrived along with numerous businesses. What was formerly pasture and woodland is now housing developments and big box stores. I haven't heard a coyote anywhere nearby for many years, until this morning.

The outside cats are wily enough to evade them, or at least I hope they are. Hello Kitty, who thinks she owns most of the block, usually naps on top of Lyndsay's Blazer, safe from prowling dogs, malevolent tomcats, and the vicious Oklahoma chupacabra.

I go along that frontage road just before dawn, but I'll try to get some photos if possible.