Coyote culture

Spring is coming. That may seem self-evident to those of you who live in temperate climates in the northern hemisphere, but out here below the Canadian Arctic, spring never seems inevitable. Winter seems to hang on forever, and there is a fear among us that winter will not revoke its grip and we'll be stuck with winter gliding into fall, and back into ---- winter. So every year we are happy when we see the signs of spring, as if we have a deal with winter, and we can say, "you can't reneg on spring now!" as though anyone could negotiate with the weather. More than any other place I've lived, the people in this place have the most reason to converse about the weather. It really seems temperamental here -- one day plus eight, the next minus 35.

As one old comedian used to say, "everyone's always talking about the weather, but no one's doing anything about it".

Anyway. The signs of spring here are brought by the birds. Winter is the silent season, or should be, if there weren't such plagues as ski-doos whining and droning in the back country. There is very little birdsong, except for crows, ravens, and magpies, who love to chatter and converse. I love these birds, they are beautiful and intelligent, and very hardy to stay around in the deep dark cold. They can all be taught to speak, if they can be domesticated. But the birds that have now arrived are the Hoary Redpolls, little finches that are smaller than sparrows, who love to eat tansy and niger seed, and who are migrating north. They don't come here every year, but this year they are back.

On our walk today I came across a fragment of coyote culture. We have many coyotes here, and I appreciate them for their untiring rodent control. The culture I speak of is the lore that coyotes have passed on from generation to generation. Occasionally we witness it. Today I noticed that they have a method of finding firm snow to walk on. We have snow here that is about a foot deep. Wind and cold temperatures have packed it in places so that it forms a crust that even a 190 lb mastiff can walk on without sinking to the knees. The crusty snow exists right beside the sinking snow, it weaves through it in a thin line. The crust is not discernable from the surface, but the coyotes have found a way to discover it. We found that following their trails put us on top of the snowdrifts, not below it. So much easier to walk on!

Coyotes are much maligned animals. We have never had a problem with them, because there is plenty of game here for them to eat (mostly gophers, moles and mice), plus the odd portion of eggs that I throw out of the coop because they are dirty or cracked. They've never come after the hens, that is the purview of the foxes, and they have left my cats alone too. Maybe that is because the mastiffs randomly patrol the yard when they are not guarding the sofa, but I prefer to think it is because we live and let live here, and we've given them privacy and a food source; this was their home before it was ours.