A Buck, A Sleeping Coyote, and a Hidden Fawn

Coyotes are mysterious creatures.

They're masters of moving unseen, slipping through the landscape under the cover of darkness, watching far more than they're ever watched. Most people don't even realize they live in coyote country, much less understand what these animals are doing when nobody is looking.

Earlier last month, I was flying my drone in search of fawns. This time of year, does leave their fawns hidden overnight while they feed, and potentially draw predators away from them. I've been trying to learn more about where those fawns choose to bed and the situations they find themselves in while they're left alone.

As I passed over a seven-acre field, two heat signatures caught my attention on the southwest side. Both were bedded out in the open.

I dropped the drone lower.

The larger hotspot was easy to identify: a mature buck. Since it was July 12th, his antlers were still in velvet, and through the thermal camera they glowed off the top of his head. I briefly switched on the spotlight to confirm what I was seeing, documented him, and turned my attention to the second hotspot.

Naturally, I assumed it was a fawn.

I eased the drone over, dropped a little lower, and clicked on the spotlight.

Coyote.

I immediately shut the light back off. Coyotes are nowhere near as tolerant of that kind of intrusion as deer are, and I didn't want to educate him.

After repositioning the drone, I took one more quick look.

What I saw wasn't what I expected.

The coyote wasn't alert.

It wasn't scanning the field.

It wasn't hunting.

It was dead asleep.

Its legs were sprawled out, head laid back against the ground, looking like it had absolutely nowhere to be. He looked more comfortable than just about any wild animal I've ever observed.

I backed the drone high into the sky and just watched.

Oddly enough, this wasn't the first time I'd documented something like this. Over the years, I've found mature bucks and mature coyotes bedded surprisingly close together. Neither seemed particularly concerned with the other's presence.

If anything...the coyote looked like he paid the property taxes.

After about ten minutes, I decided to continue searching for fawns.

As I rotated the drone toward the east, another faint hotspot appeared.

At first, I figured it was probably an armadillo, so I stayed in thermal and slowly worked my way down, watching for movement.

Nothing.

I dropped a little lower and flashed the spotlight for less than a second.

Fawn.

Well...that's interesting.

I climbed the drone back up and studied the entire scene.

The buck was bedded furthest south, roughly in the middle of the three animals.

The coyote was about 30 yards northwest of the buck.

The fawn was another 70 to 80 yards southeast of the coyote.

Then I checked the wind.

It was blowing from the southeast.

The coyote was directly downwind of the fawn.

By roughly a month of age, a fawn has largely lost the scent suppression that helps protect newborns. With the wind carrying scent straight toward the coyote, I have little doubt he knew that fawn was there.

That's when the questions started piling up.

Why was the coyote bedded only 70 to 80 yards away?

Why choose that exact spot when there were countless other places on the landscape to spend the night?

What role, if any, was the mature buck playing?

And if the coyote knew the fawn was there...

Why wasn't it trying to kill it?

Here's the possibility I keep coming back to.

The coyote obviously knew the buck was there.

It very likely knew the fawn was there too.

If making a move meant tangling with a protective mature buck, maybe the reward just wasn't worth the risk.

Maybe the smarter play was to wait.

Wait for the buck to stand up.

Wait for him to drift off into his normal nightly movements.

Wait until the fawn was alone.

I don't know.

But it's a possibility that's hard to ignore.

We often describe mature bucks as solitary animals. Independent. Self-serving. Completely disconnected from does and fawns outside of the breeding season.

But what if mature bucks are doing more than we've ever given them credit for?

What if this buck didn't choose that bed by accident?

What if he deliberately placed himself between a vulnerable fawn and one of its greatest predators?

I'm not saying that's what happened here.

I'm saying that's what I observed.

A mature buck.

A sleeping coyote.

A hidden fawn.

All within a small corner of the same seven-acre field.

Whether that buck was protecting the fawn, I don't know.

But I know exactly where all three animals chose to spend the night.

It's a hard image to forget.