It was probably looking for something to eat. Someday the only animals left will be ones that have adjusted to life with people, even if we think of them as wild because we stuck, sorry, protect, them in natural preserves.

It was probably FINDING something to eat. My god, the sheer number of slow, fat squirrels in my neighborhood...

It thrills me, too—and this is beautifully said.

They're really kind of awesome animals. I love it when nature wanders into our more artificial world; it's amazing how adaptable some animals are.

We see them a little more often (and hear them pretty much nightly if we're outdoors for very long) in the high desert, but it's still a fascinating glimpse every time. The way they carry themselves is haunting, somehow.

They are beautiful, and smart, and not dangerous to you, but yeah, make sure your little one is on a leash. I have no idea if the stories (that you hear everywhere you go in Southern California, from the Hollywood Hills to waaaay out here) of coyotes luring dogs (even large ones) out somewhere alone to kill them is true, but they will jump fences to grab toy size dogs and carry them off.

My own most recent coyote sighting, C&P from my lj: (Marley is a 60ish to 70 lb pit bull)

Almost walked right into a coyote yesterday whilst walking with Marley. We were out in the desert watching these people who had stopped with their camper in the middle of a road a turn off, and they let their dogs out to run alongside them, and Marley looked like she might want to see if she could catch them all from a quarter of a mile away but listened to me when I said, "No, no chasing. Come on this way." And suddenly right ahead of us was a big reddish coyote, also watching those people and their dogs. It was several inches taller than Marley and very well fed for a coyote, so much that I would have thought it a tall skinny dog except other it looked EXACTLY like a coyote, the kinda stilty legs and proportions and shape and ears and everythign, and it looked at us like "what are you doing here?" But didn't seem really concerned. I called Marley to me but she completely ignored me and started trotting towards the coyote. Fortunately, it ran. Even tho I was initially in between them Marley sped around me with ease. I had four thoughts going through my head simultaneously- "Wow, that's a beatiful animal! I wish Marley hadn't chased it so I could try to talk to it" and "Nooo! Don't hurt the coyote!" and this article about this moron saw a coyote in his yard and let his Doberman out and told the dog to go kill it, which resulted in a dead Doberman in about 10 seconds (coyotes are usually very small, about 30 pounds, so people underestimate them) and the memory of that surreal incident where I saw a black German shepherd and a white German shepherd take off after a coyote. They were sprinting, it was trotting, and it's trot left their sprint behind with ease. I was hoping this owuld be the case here, as there was no good outcome if Marley and it got in a fight.

So, even though Marley is the fastest dog I've ever seen run other than racing greyhounds (and that includes a Borzoi that Nina and Zoe used to play with), I figured the coyote would outrun her. She caught it in a couple of seconds, and her head was right on its left flank when they disappeared into the bush ahead of me.

Eventually, she found me, trotting up behind me while I was still chasing after them. Apparently they had changed directions up ahead and I was following old tracks, or they'd doubled back, or something. No marks and no blood, so either they coyote suddenly started *really* running and left her behind the second after they disappeared from my view, or she was just content to chase it away. To which I offer a giant "whew!"

(and, yes, I carry a flexi-lead in my hand when I walk with her, just in case. Alas, if she starts moving from too far away or before I can grab her, it's kinda useless)

Great story! Glad there was no damage done to either side!

And you're right. Coyotes are FAST. When I'm out on my parents' farm (which backs up to a very large untouched area) the coyotes run through at night, yipping and crying, and it's so fast! They're here, they're there, they're gone.

Aww, that's great you get to spend time in an area where you hear them regularly. I love listening to their calls; beautiful. Everything from relatively normal canine "talking" to plaintive to sad/lonely seeming to haunting to eerie to downright-hyena-demonic sounding.