Look who's coming to dinner...

Neighborhood Coyotes be advised: When I called him Chili-dog that wasn't an invitation to dinner.

I grew up in Australia surrounded by what is often marketed here in America as an inordinate number of poisonous, dangerous and otherwise unfriendly creatures. I grew up swimming in rivers known to be inhabited by large freshwater crocodiles. In the Summer months the ocean near where I lived was swarming with large box jellyfish with stinging tenticles , their friends the bluebottles (Portugese Man o' War) were also about to sting you if you were lucky. We frequenltly encountered large (and I'm talking 7 and 8ft) pythons while on school camping trips and on a couple of occasions my classmates and I encountered reptiles of the more poisonous varieties (Death Adders, Taipans etc). This stuff was so normal that when my mum called the other day to tell me that her dog had brought a "very pretty little baby snake" in from the paddock, I wasn't at all surprised when she figured out it was a red bellied black snake (yep, poisonous). Dog and mother, both fine, baby snake swiftly released back into the paddock without incident...

Now I live in the Pacific Northwest. People here (and most everywhere else in the States) are terrified of snakes and spiders - which don't phase me at all, but are seemingly cool with the PACKS OF COYOTES which are currently HUNTING for prey to feed their new pups in the VALLEY WHERE I LIVE.

Yes, you do detect a note of panic in the above paragraph. I am patently not cool with the coyotes.

Now if they were doing what they are supposed to do, which according to the wildlife-lovin' folks around here insist extends to being very shy, nocturnal creatures then I'd be fine. But so far this week I've been kept up at night by a bloody chorus of howling, barking, screetching wolf-like noises (nothing at all like dogs) punctuated by growling, scrabbling, and finally screaming death cries of whatever poor neighborhood cat was too slow to the cat flap. Outside my window. For. Hours. On. End.

Then today a neighbor reports that a local horse owner shot one of them (and left it's carcass out) to deter the others from pestering his horses. Not sure that it would work, but hey, if they are messing with your horses... As for the nocturnal claim, well: three other neighbors report being confronted in broad daylight by large coyotes (or possibly coydogs - mongrel coyote/domestic dog hybrid) with their children and a local cat was snatched from his garden in broad daylight. Folks have also been bandying about tales of black bear and cougar (holy shit!!) sightings... Not sure of the authenticity of those but I know for sure that there's a pack of coyotes hanging out in my yard and frankly I'd cheerfully swap 'em for a whole bunch of snakes, spiders and even a crocodile or two.

American wildlife is so much scarier than Australian wildlife. Children and dog supervised outside till further notice.