The nerve!

 

 

Of late, other than birds, the only critters I've seen in the garden on a regular basis have been bunnies.  Way too many bunnies.  The raccoons and the possums have paid regular visits of course but they restrict these to the dead of night so what I see is just the wreckage they leave behind.  I haven't even seen many squirrels, although the occasional sight of half-buried unripe guavas and persimmons suggests they've paid a stealthy visit or two as well.  Last week I complained to my husband that the abundance of bunnies suggested the absence of their usual predators.  The very next day he saw one of the missing predators in the middle of the day, trotting through our back garden seemingly without a care in the world as shown in the following video.

 

 

My husband said the coyote walked nonchalantly through the garden and down our back slope into the canyon.  He pulled the video off our security camera later but he advised me of the sighting immediately afterwards and, hearing the next door neighbor's Pomeranian dogs barking their heads off, I hurried to alert her.  She lost one dog to a coyote years ago and I didn't want her to lose another.

Coyotes used to be nocturnal.  We'd noticed that they'd extended their hours on both the front and back ends of their prior nighttime schedules but this was the first time I'd seen one out and about during the noon hour.  You'll note that he knew exactly where our fountain is too!

Coincidentally or not, I haven't seen a bunny in the garden since the coyote's reappearance last week.

All material © 2012-2022 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Wednesday Vignette: Learning to live together

Spring brings color, wonder and joy into our lives but, in my area, it's also known to bring an increase in coyote activity.  Coyotes breed in January through March and their pups are generally born in April and May.  With more mouths to feed, adult coyotes become more visible, aggressive and territorial.

This coyote was photographed from inside my living room in late April last year

Along with thefts of catalytic converters, notice of coyote sightings are among the most prevalent topics on community social media posts.  Last week, in an effort to get ahead of what's become a very emotional issue, our city sent a large, glossy, 4-page bulletin to all residents in an effort to educate them about how to deal with coyotes safely and effectively.

In addition to the print bulletin, the city is holding a 2-hour forum for local residents on wildlife management, with an emphasis on coyotes

Coincidentally (or not), a local beach city paper also published a story on coyotes on their front page this week

I saw my first coyotes up close when I was in graduate school, living in Santa Monica.  A neighbor and I walked in the early morning before she left for work but on one occasion she wasn't feeling well so I took off by myself.  Strolling through a neighborhood of expensive homes several blocks from my apartment, I noticed a woman in a skirt and heels running down the opposite side of the street with her dog on a leash.  A minute or two later, I noticed three dogs off-leash.  My first thought was that it was interesting that they all looked alike.  A second later, I realized that the "dogs" headed my way were coyotes.  I didn't run but I turned the corner and walked briskly in another direction.

When my husband and I moved to a different, densely-populated beach city several years later, I heard stories of coyote sightings but I never actually saw one.  When we were in the process of buying our current house in a semi-rural area, I asked the real estate agent representing the seller if there were coyotes in the area.  He downplayed the concern.  I didn't see any coyotes for the first 5 years here but I did hear them at night sometimes.  Then I began spotting them now and again during the daylight hours, and neighbors began complaining about their "extended" hunting schedules.  I recall seeing a young coyote trotting down the street while being dive-bombed by a pair of crows.  That incident had a comical element, as did an episode in 2018 we caught on our home security cameras.

In March 2018, our newspaper disappeared from our driveway.  Curious, my husband checked the security camera in an effort to discover if it just wasn't delivered, or if someone carried it off.  It turns out that the "someone" in this case was a coyote.  You can see him carrying the paper wrapped in red plastic in the upper middle section of the photo above.

He carried the paper halfway around the house before dropping it on the dirt path alongside the hedge behind our back garden border

 

Not long afterwards, neighbors reported that their dog was snatched right in front of them.  Then our next door neighbor lost her Pomeranian to a coyote that apparently jumped over her backyard fence.  My cats had never been allowed to roam on their own but I did give them a little supervised time outside each morning.  That came to an abrupt end in 2020.

I was preparing to exit via our back door with Pipig on my heels when I nearly walked into a coyote on a collision course.  It was hard to tell which one of us was more startled.  I slammed the door and the coyote went running.

 

Pipig has been confined to the house and her screened "catio" ever since.  I even had my husband reinforce the bottom section of the catio to provide additional protection.

She's an elderly cat now and less inclined to try sneaking out but I'm still careful about tracking her, especially when other people are in the house

The city prohibits feeding coyotes, which seems obvious but I remember one elderly neighbor who'd made a practice of doing that in the mistaken belief that it would keep the coyotes from eating the stray cats she cared for.  The city's bulletin provides a range of other recommendations to deter coyotes.

I thought it was a great idea on the city's part to provide a page to educate kids about dealing with coyotes too

 

Some of the key recommendations include:

• Removing all outside sources of food, including rotting fruit
• Introducing motion-activated lights or sprinklers
• "Hazing" coyotes by yelling and waving arms, using noisemakers, water hoses, and rocks or sticks if necessary until they run off
  

I'm not especially worried about the coyote "threat" myself but I'm concerned every time I see someone's pet cat or dog running loose through the neighborhood.  Coyotes and other local predators (raccoons, possums and foxes) have been here longer than humans have.  We need to respect their way of life while protecting the domestic animals we share our lives with by taking appropriate precautions.

Rodents and wild rabbits are the coyote's natural prey but I admit to feeling a twinge of concern when I see baby rabbits like this one

For other Wednesday Vignettes, visit Anna at Flutter & Hum.

All material © 2012-2022 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Wednesday Vignette: Visitors

It's been awhile since I've had visitors come by to share a meal.  In the "before times," a group of local friends and I used to meet at least weekly for lunch.  That came to an abrupt end in March of last year when Los Angeles issued its "safer-at-home" guidelines and our usual lunch haunts closed.  We met twice last year in my back garden for a socially-distanced meal but the last of those get-togethers was in November.  Now that we're all vaccinated, we're assembling again today.  Like the excursion two weeks ago, it feels like another milestone on the road to a semblance of normalcy.

I scrubbed all the furniture and cushions late Sunday afternoon to give them time to dry.  My husband hauled out our large sun umbrella after I took this photo.  All I still need to do is add the tablecloth and bring out plates, glasses and cutlery.  We've ordered take-out food this time so (yay!) no food preparation is required on my part.

The Ginkgo biloba 'Autumn Gold' off the patio is not a visitor but it's welcome too.  I ordered it in late February to replace the dying mimosa tree we removed in late October.  I subsequently had to size up my selection to get what I wanted.  After a difficult time getting it home in one piece and then moving it from our truck to the back garden, we're going to get some help putting it in the ground but it looks nice even in its wood box.

There are going to be six of us for lunch so, if the sun umbrella doesn't provide adequate coverage, some of my guests may elect to retire to the south side patio, which I also cleaned up.  It's expected to get up to the mid-80sF (29C) today.

Not all our recent visitors have been welcome.  Another kind of visitor has been paying nightly calls on us.  Here's the fellow in question:

I snapped this photo last Friday from inside the house as night was falling.  The following evening, while my husband was in the backyard spa tub, he and the coyote locked eyes until the coyote decided to continue his way down our back slope into the canyon beyond.

The coyote prowls the garden, presumably hunting for prey, marking our property as part of his territory by leaving scat behind with each visit.  He's diligent.  He may have a family to feed as this is mating and pupping season, when they're most active.  However, if rabbits were on his shopping list, all he found in my garden was bunny tail grass (Lagurus ovatus).

I sowed seed of this ornamental grass in an adjacent area of the garden 2 years ago and it keeps coming back, albeit in different spots  

There are actually real bunnies here.  They like to eat my Gazanias.  But there's no sign that the coyote has sent them packing yet - I still find half-eaten Gazania flowers every day.  Based on the coyote's calling cards, at present it looks as though his diet consists mainly of fruit.

For more Wednesday Vignettes, visit Anna at Flutter & Hum.

All material © 2012-2021 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

  

Wednesday Vignette: That's NOT a dog!

Every morning, I pop out the back door and swing around the corner of the house to enter the screened enclosure attached to its south side to clean my cat's litter box.  Pipig usually follows me, entering her "catio" by means of a small pet door inside the living room, and I allow her 5 minutes of loosely supervised outdoor time to chew grass and generally take a look around.  Yesterday, as I opened the door, I got a big surprise.

It's hard to say which of us was more startled: me or the coyote (Photo taken from security camera footage)

The coyote took off as I simultaneously slammed the door closed.  As I told my husband about my sighting, we both looked out the living room window to the south (near the catio) and saw the coyote looking back at us.  As soon as he realized he'd been sighted again, he took off and kept going that time.

My husband pulled 30 seconds of video coverage of him stalking through the garden preceding our encounter.

Pipig wasn't in any direct danger during this encounter but she's probably not going to be allowed outside again during the morning hours for the foreseeable future.  She usually follows me around until she gets her outdoor time, brief as it is, but she didn't do so yesterday.  It may be that she was aware a coyote was in the vicinity.  She'd woken both my husband and I up during the early morning hours going from window to window watching something.  Our outdoor motion-detection lights went off around 5am so we checked the security camera footage around that time too and got another slice of critter action in our back garden.  The following 37-second video shows a raccoon at our fountain, surprised in much the same way as I was several hours later.

So it seems we were visited by at least one raccoon and two coyotes last night.  My husband saw both coyotes on another camera shortly after the larger one took off after the raccoon so we're reasonably certain the raccoon wasn't harmed.

Pipig calmly basking in the sun filtering through the front door yesterday afternoon

That's my Wednesday Vignette.  For more, visit Anna at Flutter & Hum.


All material © 2012-2020 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Who'd have guessed? (Wednesday Vignette)

Last Thursday, our newspapers came up missing.  My husband usually picks them up from our driveway before he starts his morning walk.  He was much later than usual in getting started that morning but, thinking the paper delivery person may also have been late, he took off.  While he was out he noticed that several of our neighbors had papers in their driveways so, when he returned home, he did a thorough search of the bushes to see if he could find ours.  He didn't and, assuming that the delivery person had simply missed us or that someone had walked off with them, we called in for replacements, which were promptly delivered.  My husband asked if I could imagine that anyone in the neighborhood could have walked off with them and I shrugged and said it was just one of the two only plausible possibilities.  We'd had papers "walk away" on numerous occasions at our former house but our present neighborhood is both less densely populated and more off the beaten track, so theft seemed unlikely.  I sat down to my breakfast with the Los Angeles Times, while my husband took off with his Wall Street Journal, and I promptly dismissed the whole question.  But, my husband, being curious, decided to check our security cameras.  He quickly returned, urging me to come view the camera footage with the statement "you're never going to guess what happened."

The paper WAS delivered.  I've circled it sitting at the bottom of our driveway.

A mere minute or 2 later, a visitor strolls by and immediately checks out the paper, which was wrapped in a red plastic cover due to rain

Yes, that's Mr. Coyote carrying off the paper

It looked as though he was headed down the moss-covered dirt path just inside the hedge that borders the street

But he apparently clambered up the stepping stones that lead up to the main level of the front garden.  You can see him just to the left of the date stamp at the top of the screenshot.

And another camera picked him up here rounding the bend into the garden on the south side

At least he paid no attention to Pipig's screened porch on the right, although she was probably in the house yelling at me to dish out her breakfast at that point

He retained a good hold on that paper as he trotted along

This was the last good view we had of him

Although a fourth camera picked up his movements along another dirt path in the back garden (roughly above the "01" in 2018 above), I couldn't get any decent screenshots from this view.  However, I did find the missing papers another 20 feet or so beyond this point, where I suspect he abandoned them to dart through the hedge and down the slope into the canyon in search of other prey.

For the record, I did guess correctly in response to my husband's question but my response was in jest and I was incredulous when I saw the video, depicted here in selected screenshots from four separate cameras.  I still can't fathom why the coyote chose to pick up the paper, much less carry it through the garden for two or more minutes.  Maybe he was annoyed that I'd cleaned up the deposit he'd left in the driveway the morning before to mark our house as his territory.  Or maybe he was irritated that I'd discouraged bunny visits to my garden by caging the plants they've been grazing on.  Maybe he has an interest in what's happening in the stock market.  Who knows!!!

For more Wednesday Vignettes, visit Anna at Flutter & Hum.


All material © 2012-2018 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party

Raccoon Wreckage

How can a creature this cute be so willfully destructive?  Maybe the masks they wear should have been a clue to their nefarious intent but my peaceful dealings with them in the past made me complacent.












Raccoons visited the backyard at our old house only twice a year or so.  They upset the cats but did no damage to the garden.  The same cannot be said of the raccoons who visit us now.  For one thing, these raccoons show up more nights than not.  They steal the dirty garden gloves I leave out on the back porch.  They pull seashells out of the upper tier of our fountain, depositing them about the yard.  They tear up sections of lawn.

After rains, when the soil is wet, they leave torn pieces of lawn here, there and everywhere.  I replace the torn sections, only to find them torn up again the following day.  The grass, which isn't in good shape to begin with, is left with large bare spots.  If they'd take out all the lawn in one area, I'd hire them (all the grubs they can eat!).  However, they're inclined to spread their efforts over disconnected sections of lawn.

Most annoying, they love to pull up new plants.

Luckily, I found this Anemone shortly after it was uprooted but that's not always the case.

They seem to have a particular attraction to one of my raised vegetable beds.  They've pulled out the broccoli and onion transplants three times.  The lettuce seeds I carefully planted around the broccoli are probably a lost cause.  I thought the relative bareness of the bed might be part of the attraction so I added some snapdragons and Alyssum to the bed to make it appear a little fuller, only to have them toss the flowers around too.  I've replanted the bed (again) but I have no idea if or how long they'll leave the it alone.  The broccoli remains stunted.

The navel and Mandarin oranges on the citrus trees adjacent to the vegetable beds are ripening and there are signs that they've attracted the attention of the raccoons.  (They apparently don't care for guava.)  I don't mind sharing the citrus harvest if it means that they'll leave the lawn and my new plantings alone.  Other than enticing them away from one kind of plant with another, do you have any good ideas for controlling raccoons in the garden?

I know, I know.  People in deer country have it a lot worse.  The only really difficult animals in our immediate area are the coyotes - sadly, a neighbor recently lost a Silky Terrier to one - but we have yet to see one on-site.  Maybe the raccoons have earmarked our yard as their territory and the coyotes are keeping their distance.  If so, I suppose I should see them as a blessing.

Note: The raccoon picture at the top of the post isn't one I took.  I got it off the web from a collection of photos in the public domain.  Our raccoons are a lot bigger and badder than this fellow.