[please scroll down to see the photos]    

  I’ve been photographing coyotes since 2007, so I’ve had time to accumulate some images. Weather and lighting conditions aren’t always best at dawn, but this is when I always set out on my daily walks.  My canine walking-companion of 15 years accompanied me until his very end -- now I walk alone.  Fog, rain and bad early morning light conditions (shutter speed has been as low as 1/20) are standard conditions when looking at wildlife at dawn in the area. Winter photography, I have found, requires more use of higher ISO settings -- this means graininess.    

       Coyotes are my true passion -- as probably can be seen from these photos. Everyone I know is as thrilled as I am to have them here, even if they’ve never seen one!  In three years I have come across eleven coyotes in four of our parks, seven of which are included in this site. I’ve been lucky enough to get some nice zoomed-in coyote “portraits,” many of which I’ve cropped in very close -- this better reveals their beauty and not only makes them more exciting, but also more “familiar” -- mostly, they are not far off from what your own dog is like -- they are the wild form of this same dog, its ancestor, usually with scruffy fur since no one combs it.

        These photos are a means to an end: celebrating and preserving these wild animals in our urban areas. I abide by a standard code of ethics which respects the coyotes’ spacial needs: the code is to maintain a safe enough distance so as not to startle them or interrupt their natural flow of behavior (such as feeding or resting, or barking, for that matter) -- each animal is different and has a different boundary line for himself. One-on-one I try to promote their well-being and safety by advocating against advertising their locations, against feeding them, against disturbing their dens, and I alert dog walkers to please leash up if a coyote is around. I’ve put out olfactory barriers, made signs and contributed photos to animal protection sites. Also, I try to dispel fears people might have about coyotes. 

        While I’m at it, I’m studying their fascinating behavior!!  Right now I’m working on preserving the thicket areas that serve as their habitat, at a time when the “native plant” trend is taking over our woodsy park areas.  Please promote their well-being in your own way whenever you can -- it will make you feel connected to nature and the environment which we are part of. We can all be part of the global environmental movement to preserve what we have and not destroy any more of it.

        I will rotate the photos at times. I’m including sounds -- real arias -- from two different coyotes, and two links to useful information on coyotes that I wrote, and a blog.  Additional audio sounds can be heard on “coyote barking” and “coyote howling”. To speed up opening the website, I reduced file sizes. Please see article in The New York Times which appeared on March 14, 2010: Taking Walks on the Wild Side.