Out in the wilds of West Marin, it really is the dog days of summer. Foxes and coyotes are feasting on a super-abundance of prey, and judging by sightings and tracks, the litters of young were very successful. For the first time ever, I saw coyote pups out by themselves; this month I spotted two in different parts of the seashore. There is something awfully cute about a half-size, long-limbed, fuzzy young coyote!
Both of those sightings were mid-morning, possibly indicating that the pups haven’t quite mastered the art of nighttime hunting or surreptitiousness. But of course, those super-intelligent canines are quite unfazed by human presence. They can clearly differentiate between hunters and hikers and don’t really bother to hide when unnecessary, so a sighting can indicate coyote well being and comfort. In addition, fox and coyote scats, “scattered” across our landscapes, testify to their wide use of open space and to the corresponding abundance of food.
Though I never see foxes on my own bluffside property, I’ve heard many tales this year of grey fox pups cavorting in yards and denning under decks and in nearby thickets. Foxes find safety from coyotes—who will kill them—by hugging territory under the protective umbrella of human habitation. Their clear preference for forest thickets makes for a neat arrangement with the coyotes, who strongly favor open habitat where they can run unrestricted.
While both dog species enjoy the fall fruit crops, foxes include a much higher proportion of fruit in their regular diet, commensurate with their forest habitat. Their scats tell stories of their movements and food availability. Examining their artfully-placed scat for berry content provides a great indicator of the earliest ripening huckleberries. The grey fox scat is unique in how clearly its rodent meals and fruit meals are differentiated. Their pellet-shaped scats rarely mix them the way the twisty coyote scats do.
There is another reason why, during the dog days of summer, our wild canines are hardly “dogging it”: they have an arrangement with the raccoons. When the ‘coon families come to strip an orchard tree, the foxes join in the party. The grey fox is a good climber, but the raccoons are better, and the foxes (and deer) are happy to be the cleanup crew. A raccoon scat latrine almost always borders these fruit tree raids; a few scats full of the shells of their other favorite food, creekside crustaceans, make identification easy. But on a raised object nearby, you will find fox pellets too.
Meanwhile, out on our shorelines, tracks and scat reveal another aspect of our summer abundance: the coastal climate, with a warm summer and wet heavy fogs this year, has supported healthy plant growth. Deer Mice have proliferated along with a bounty of seaside plants. The Sea Rocket—with its little Flash Gordon, rocketship-shaped seed pods and fleshy foliage—has grown particularly well in the foredunes this year, and deer mice love the seeds, nibbling them open on one side, leaving the pods to accumulate in large drifts beneath the plants. This plant alone may account for the booming mouse populations. Early morning, fog-dampened sands reveal thousands of mouse tracks at a glance.
In similar locations, brush rabbits are also booming this year, partly fueled by the sea rocket crops. The rabbits prefer the succulent foliage, in many cases stripping the plants bare. Rabbits tend to experience population cycles that are more extreme than other mammals, and this is the big up year for our “bunnies”. Their tracks and trails cover the foredunes where they congregate at night and early dawn, are appearing in concentrations far greater than anything I’ve ever seen.
I watched the jackrabbit population go through a similar boom, then bust three or four years ago. The jackrabbits are fond of the sand verbena foliage. When the recent drought began, the Verbena died back considerably , perhaps contributing to the jackrabbit crash. This crash, in turn, had something to do with coyotes abandoning the Abbott’s basin which they had crisscrossed regularly for years, hunting, in part, for the Jackrabbits. After a two-year absence, one female has finally returned this year to lay claim to the territory, possibly the first one to take advantage of the growing mouse and brush rabbit presence. Now, slowly, with the expanding brush rabbit territories, coyotes are returning to old patterns, but the jackrabbits have yet to come back.
Taking a guess, I expect this fall and winter to be particularly successful for canine reproduction and we’ll be seeing more of them next spring. With the abundance of small-prey, our bobcats will also do very well, so perhaps we can call this the cat days of summer too!
Richard Vacha lives in Point Reyes Station, where he makes a living as a craftsman and has studied tracking for 30 years. For information about the Marin Tracking Club and the Point Reyes Tracking School programs, email
[email protected].