Tucson Wildlife Blog: Wylette et al

Hello all, As you noticed, I had to change that wily coyote's name to Willette, and not I'm changing it to Wylette so you can know the correct pronunciation. Well, no sooner did I have my last post finished when Wylette was out there again. I'm sure it was her! She was checking out my newly enlarged labyrinth. She was standing in it, then laid down in it and was kind of rolling around in it, stood up and looked around, then walked over to the side in plain view of my "window on the world". It was amazing!

A few days later I saw another coyote as I turned the corner of our road in our development, or "undevelopment" one would say, looking at the desert-scape. And a few days after that Ron said 3 coyotes crossed in front of him as he drove into the church driveway. So I asked Bev, my friend who moved to West Hampton, to look up in her animal totem book what coyote means if you keep seeing them around. Her report is that they are tricksters, and that I must need to "lighten up" in some way perhaps. Well, since my last post I heard that those Wiley coyotes use a female in heat to attract a dog, and then leads it to the pack. And then....dun, taduntun! Very tricky indeed. And last week Jill, across HoneyBee Canyon from us, looked out her dining room window and saw a coyote. OK, I'm getting lighter by the minute! Ha, I wish!

Last week I had red rock put in my labyrinth path and a cement bench installed. I love it!!! I had to trim back 2 chollas that were dangerously close to my path. I only got stuck on my elbow and hand. I swear, some of them really are "Jumping Chollas"! they jump right onto you. And later when it is all past freezing we'll move the bigger agave out of the entrance pathway, and move the fencepost cactus that is close to the bench. That will be phase 6.

And as you can see, we were close to a freeze so I covered up the top of the columnar cacti for protection. Now today it is 78 degrees.

Yesterday there was evidence of another (??) animal on my labyrinth -- scat in the pathway but no tracks on the outside of the labyrinth itself. And just a while ago a big rabbit was laying outside the path but right up next to it just taking a rest. So I guess my desert friends like the energy of the labyrinth as well. Actually, now there are 2 bunnies out there doing the mating dance. OMG! I guess they really, really like it out there!

On Friday night there were 13 of us out walking the labyrinth in the dark with flashlights. A great christening!