One thing about deep snow and a snowshoe trail—if you make it, everyone in the neighborhood will use it. So I was out yesterday seeing who’s around. At various places in the trail I found the tracks of two moose, a fox, quite a few snowshoe hares and red squirrels, and a grouse or two. The neighbor’s dog had bounded through, too, as she sometimes does. But yesterday there was a new set of tracks I hadn’t seen here before: a good-sized canine that walked like the fox. I’ve seen a lot of coyote tracks, and this sure looked right. But how to be sure it wasn’t a dog?

When I was out today, I remembered that yesterday I’d caught a faint whiff of a funky, skunk-like aroma. I went back to that spot and spent some time looking, and sure enough, the large canid had scent marked. It was a female. I bent down and picked up a piece of the very darkly marked snow, stuck it under my nose, and took a good sniff. Yowza! Too much! I couldn’t get that nasty, rank smell out of my face for a good ten or fifteen minutes. I’m pretty sure it was a coyote.

Probable coyote tracks

This is an unexpected [probable] addition to the local fauna. I’d just remarked to Rose a week or so ago that I was surprised that we hadn’t seen evidence of a lynx yet. We’ve seen them in the neighborhood less than a mile away, and there sure are a lot of hares around. We’ll keep our eyes open for better visual confirmation. But my nose knows.