Autumn

by

Silverwolf ©



A crisp October breeze rustled down our well-worn path, tossing Tippys folded ears back on her pretty head as her nose danced, testing new scents carried along it. I loved watching the wind play her fine haired ears and tail, the black and white strands rippling like a million little flags saluting her beauty. Maple leaves, their journey from grey barked branches ended, rustled underfoot like the turning leaves of a well read book. An opening appeared in trees surrounding the narrow trail; overcast sky providing little contrast to the massive trunks, and Tippy halted there, waiting on me to catch up.

I stepped out onto the rough graveled embankment of a rusty rail line. Not long abandoned, weeds and grass had just begun taking hold among the cracked, hard creosote covered ties. An avenue for wildlife now, it remained heavily trafficked, proven quickly by the scat Tippys sensitive nose now investigated along the near rail. Joining her, I squatted, tussling her head, long enough to recognize the berry and bone loaded sign of either a coon or coyote. Both had a fairly high population here, though coyote had been rare this far north and east till a few years ago. Lowered hunting kills and a high prey population invited them, and I expected they would soon take hold here and move on to New England. The only bar to them would be the northern Adorondaks and Maine, where I knew wolves to again reside despite the opinion of desk-bound biologists. Recording size and consistency in a wax covered notepad, already half filled with observations, I clicked my tongue through my teeth, sending Tippy west along the rail line as I followed at an easy pace.

When I could bear to look away from her hip swaying, exotic trot, I noted how laden the hawthorn and sumac were with berries this year, jotting this in my feildbook with the thought that it would be less a lean winter for the deer and birds than the last had been. Without natural predators in this part of New York, and with lowered kill rates from human hunters, the deer population had exploded last year, and nature had taken over with an increase in starvation and disease to lower the numbers by a third in the most conservative estimates. I had, in February, found a whole herd decimated. Twenty-three dead carcasses within 10 miles of my home that marrowfat examination of the long legbone showed was due to starvation. A natural process, the population fluctuating within a year of food availability, but sad nonetheless when you stood over a 6 month old fawn, weak and wasted by its dead mother, that never really had a chance to live. Still, the population drop last winter insured a good food supply for the coming season.

Tippy halted a few yards ahead, tail erect and pointing at a mound of fresh earth in the far side of a drainage ditch between the rail line and an old stone walled cornfield. A known Red Fox den in the past, it now looked freshly dug and my curiosity piqued, I went to work looking for sign of the new inhabitant. My first clue came from more of the black, pasty scat Tippy had found earlier, but light on berry seed and containing no bones or fur. Following a line from the scat in the middle of the rails to the earth den, I soon found small canine tracks in the lightly packed earth. Though fox sized, they lacked either the barred pad of a red or the heavier fur and longer claws of the tree dwelling grey fox, and were mixed with a larger print resembling a domestic dog, but without a dogs splayed toes. “Looks like it’s a Coyote den now.” I told Tippy, recording at least three separate pup's prints as well as two adults. The size and spacing of the prints would later help me determine the size and weight of the family members as the scat would their overall health, though the animals themselves remained unseen.

As I bend measuring the opening of the burrow with a pocket rule, I hear a low, muffled growl emanating from the bowels of the den. “Someone’s home, Tippy” I state looking over my shoulder at my lady patiently awaiting me. She yawns, sets on one curvaceous hip, and, exposing a white fleshed inner thigh, gives her ear a toss with a delicate foot. Smiling, I rise from my studies, putting rule and notebook in an inside pocket of my denim jacket. As Tippy stands waving her sinuous tail, I decide its time to travel home and compile notes on our days nature studies, then climb in bed to explore a little nature of our own.



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