Coyote Pups

 Back in 2007 and we made one of our numerous trips out to Yellowstone. That year the weather was not very cooperative so we did not have as many good photo opportunities as we usually do when we go to Yellowstone. The bright spot of the trip was the coyote den that we found, along with numerous other photographers, out on Blacktail Plateau. Mating season for coyotes is from January to March. The female goes in heat for less then a week so timing is very important. The gestation period is about 2 month. The pups are born blind and helpless. They will remain this way for about 10 days. They will remain in the den for about 3 to 4 weeks.These pups have emerged and have probably been weened and are eating meat. The coyote pictures that I took that year have been the most popular pictures on my blog with nearly 40,000 hits. If you would like to see the rest of the series click on the link below.

Favorite Coyote Pups Post

A Popular Old Post

I was going through my stats on blogger the other day and found that my most popular post of all time is a Camera Critters post that I did back in December of 2008. The subject of the post was a group of coyote pups that we photographed on our Yellowstone trip back in 2007.
Even though the pups are very cute I could not figure out why this was my most popular post with almost 5 times more hits then the next most popular. Not only was this post the most popular of all time but it was also the most popular for the week and the month. I could not figure it out, especially since the post was so old. I figured maybe someone put up a link to it, so I did a Google search for coyote pups and found that these 2 pictures are the first two pics that Google has listed for coyote pups. So thank you very much Google. There are several other coyote pups pictures on the post so if you would like to see the original post I have linked it here.

Camera Critters: Coyote Pups

Each year for the past several years we have made a trip out to Yellowstone National Park to photograph wildlife. Typically we either go in May or September, although we prefer May.
Our 2007 Yellowstone trip was perhaps the most disappointing to date. The weather was not very cooperative and we did not see as many of the more rare species that year.

The highlight of the trip that year was the den of coyote puppies that we had the opportunity to photograph for a couple of days.

We had other opportunities to photograph coyote pups at the den in past trips but none of the other dens where as close or accessible as this den was.

The den was located near to a boardwalk trail up near Black-tailed Dear Plateau. There were many photographers there sitting on the boardwalk taking pictures of the pups that were playing outside the den about 50 feet away.

We photographed the pups over a couple of days but when we returned on a third day the den was empty. When we asked another photographer in the area about the den we found out that someone had tried to get close to the den which had worried the adults so they had packed up the kids and moved the den. Why do some people have to be so stupid and thoughtless.

Yellowstone day 5: More dog days of Yellowstone.

Thursday morning we decided to head off to the coyote den right away in the morning. On the way there we saw this bull elk resting at the side of a creek. I guess sometimes even the elk find it hard to get up and get going in the morning. Prolly did not get his morning coffee yet.

When we got to the coyote den we found that there was an adult with the pups. One of the people who had been watching the den for days told us that this was a female from a previous litter who was still living with the parents. This was a behavior that I had never seen before. I am sure that it was difficult for the parents having another mouth to feed as well as all the puppies but it did give them a built in babysitter. Sometimes though it is not so much fun taking care of the kids when you are a teenager.

But a little puppy love makes things all better.
Mom did come back while we watched with some breakfast.
A bit of protein does a puppy body good.
I can't believe I ate the whole thing! I think that I m going into food coma.

After a few hours, and another 8gb worth of used CF card, the adults left to hunt some more and the puppies settled down to sleep. It was getting around lunch time so we headed to Tower to eat our lunch. After eating we headed out to Lamar Valley. In Lamar we photographed a male pronghorn resting as well as an active osprey nest. On our way out of Lamar we spotted a big horned ram on a hill over looking the road. This is likely the same ram that we had photographed earlier in the week.
We made a stop back in tower where we saw a couple of mule dear.
Then we decided that we would go back to the coyote den and photograph some more puppies. On the way back we spotted a yellow bellied marmot, sometimes called a woodchuck, on the side of the road.
When we got back to the interpretive trail where the den was we saw that the parking lot was almost empty. I went back to the back of the boardwalk to set up but their were no coyotes visible. One of the other visitors there told me that someone had tried to get too close and the coyotes had moved the den. I have done a lot of crazy things to get a good shot, but forcing an animal to move it's home and family to get a picture is just plain wrong.

Yellowstone day 4: Who let the dogs out!

Day three in Yellowstone was pretty much a wash. It snowed most of the day. With very poor lighting it was difficult to take any pictures. So we decided to pack it in early that day and hope that Wednesday, day four, would be better. Wednesday morning the weather was better so we decided to head back to the Tower/Lamar Valley area. When we got close to tower we noticed a few cars parked along the road so we decided to stop and take a look. The reason for the traffic was a black bear in the woods a short way from the road.

After foraging in the woods for a bit the bear headed towards the road. I could tell from my experience around Yellowstone bears that the bear was looking to cross the road. Unfortunately there were no rangers around at the moment and there were quite a few people blocking his path trying to get pictures with their little cameras. I did not want to see the bear get in any trouble so I asked the people to make a path for the bear to cross and surprisingly people listened.
I got a couple of good close ups as the bear crossed. Fortunately I have a descent lens so I do not have to be right on top of the bear to get a good shot.
A few minutes later it became obvious why the bear was itching to cross the road. After the bear moved of into the back country we continued on to the Tower visitor area. When we were there we heard about a coyote den that was in a good location back the way that we had come. So we decided to head back and check it out. On the way we noticed a couple of cars parked in the exit to the Blacktail Plateau trail. We stopped and were rewarded with some more pictures of a red fox. The fox crossed the road and quickly disappeared on the other side so we continued back to where the coyote den was supposed to be. The location of the den was right off of the Forces of the Northern Range Self-guiding Trail. When we got there we saw that the parking lot was pretty full. We had noticed that there were many cars in the lot on our way out but we had thought that it was a tour group or something. The den was located off the back of the boardwalk which was currently filled with photographers, most with huge lenses. We had seen coyote dens on past Yellowstone trips but none had ever been so close and accessible. We spent most of the rest of the day shooting the very cute pups.

After several hours and a couple of 8gb cards the pups finally got tired and decided to sleep. We took their lead and headed back to our hotel.