Face to face with a Coyote

by Patti
(Brantford, Ontario, Canada)

Coyote sitting

July 30th at about 11:00 am, I decided to go for a three hour hike along the Grand River footpath, starting at Hardy Road walking towards Paris Ontario.

About forty minutes into the walk, I rounded a corner along the path and suddenly, right there in front of me, not even three feet from the path was a large grey Coyote resting at the base of a tree, making eye contact with me!

In the past, I have seen sightings of them in the fields, saw traces of their scat and noticed their tracks in the snow but I never expected to see one resting directly in front of me along the path!

I wondered why it made no effort to leave the area as I and my hiking companion were talking loudly so it heard us coming and certainly would have detected our presence before we detected his. He never made any advances or displayed aggression towards me. He was calm and curiously staring at me. I immediately stopped, backed away slowly then turned and very briskly headed away from the Coyote.

I did have my camera but unfortunately, I was more concerned about safely moving away from the isolation of the forest rather than considering this as a photo opportunity!

I made a quick retreat- very quick retreat- and cut my hike short!

Thank you for sending this report to us - I'm sure our readers will enjoy this very much!

I hope you don't mind, I added a picture of a Coyote.

I will also post this on our facebook page so that our facebook friends can also enjoy it.