Originally Posted by
1911Nut
Several years ago, my family and I lived in Las Cruces, NM. Our home was in the foothills of the Organ Mountains, and our property had a huge open expanse of high desert land behind our home. An old utility road ran directly behind the wall surrounding our back yard, and was part of our property.
One late fall morning, I was outside the back wall with a rake, shovel, and a wheelbarrow, and was raking and cleaning the old road for the entire length of our property outside the wall. I was wearing jeans and a white tee shirt, so I was certainly not camouflaged in any way.
I was bent over raking facing directly north and heard the footsteps of "something" approaching me rapidly I looked up in time to see a very large jackrabbit running very fast directly southward in the road on a direct collision course with me. Before I had time to even react, the rabbit made a last second evasive move and went around my left side, missing my left leg by no more than 3 or 4 inches, never slowing at all.
Obviously, I was very surprised. But not near as surprised as I was to see a large coyote about 10-12 yards behind the rabbit and in full pursuit. The coyote and I saw each other at exactly the same time, and he came to a sliding emergency stop! I would estimate that the coyote stopped less than five yards from me, in the sitting position, centered in the roadway I had been raking.
I just stood there and looked at him and he just sat there looking at me. After a few seconds, he leaned over in his sitting position as if trying to look around me to see where the rabbit had gone. Then he leaned back into a straight upright position and leaned the opposite way and looked around my other side, as if searching for the rabbit. I'm convinced that by this time, the rabbit was at least half a mile way, as he showed no intention of slowing down when he blew past me).
Then the coyote resumed sitting in an upright position and just stared at me. I starred at him while leaning on my rake handle. He stared. I stared. After a fairly significant amount of time, he got up, turned directly away from me and began to trot (not run) back up the road from the direction which he had come. He went about 15 yards and sat back down and stared at me for a few more seconds, then resumed his retreat up the road.
He repeated this behavior a couple more times, trotting 15-20 yards away from me, sitting down, staring at me, and retreating again. When he was 75-80 yards away, the road gained in elevation and turned eastward, and the coyote disappeared into the landscape.
I have had a LOT of experiences with coyotes in my life, and for many years spent a majority of my free time varmint calling and either shooting or entertaining coyotes using both mouth calls and electronic calls.
But that morning behind my house was among the most unusual behaviors I have ever witnessed.