Coyote bedding areas

On the coyote bed thing, there's a spot near our bear camp in north central PA that is some of the thickest laurel we've encountered, and that's saying something there. We'd been thru it before on bear drives, so we knew what it was. You do the under-machinegun-fire crawl they teach you in the military in there - it's the only way thru unless you can fly. But this time we had some rookie high school kids, so we sent them thru it....LOL! Experience pays. Anyhooo, we get a call on the radio from one of the young un's...."Can anybody hear me?"...."Yeah, what's up?"....."I found something"...."OK, what'd ya find?"...."I'm not sure"....."Ummmm, ok..what's it look like"...."well, it's dark in here and I can't see too good, but it looks like bowls dug down in the ground with fur lining them"........"Ummmm, dude, I don't know exactly where you are, but get the H outta there!".

Later, best we could figure out, we think it's coyote "nests" where they shack up in thick laurel on top of a ridge during the summer months?? where they can catch whatever breeze may flow thru there.....not sure, but it's our theory. Thinking they do the walk-in-a-circle thing that dogs do before they lay down and paw at the ground repeatedly (the bowls), and shed hair (fur) during the summer months to the point that the hair builds up in the dugout bowls? Make any sense to anybody? Any coyote with any sense woulda been gone WAY before the drive got in there. Oddly, it's right behind some of the camps thee...prolly within 100 yards or so. There can be bear in there on any given day or time, so why yotes?

Thought I'd share.
 
Here in MN we have a creek that runs through our property and is about 15 miles long. Most of the creek is way down below the fields that surround it. The coyotes are always traveling through down in the ravines. It can get pretty thick down there too. I think they lay in thick cover or under downed trees. Also found a den once that I think coyotes were utilizing because I called and they came running right up from where that den was down along a ravine. I’ve also seen them come out from thick tree lines on the edge of a field. They were in there for hours then popped out after they woke up from their nap. I’ve also walked out to investigate spots where I’ve previously seen them only to find 1;000 footprints on the ground and an old piece of rope or some other dog toy laying out there. What I surmised was that 2 coyotes were playing tug of war with each other.....just like your house dogs would do. They trampled down all the snow in an area measuring about 50’ squared with thousands of foot prints in the snow. I’ve also seen them laying on top of hay bails....probably not actually sleeping....but resting biding their time until an opportunity presents itself. Up here, as far as bedding goes....usually they are back in the thick stuff....or else almost in plain sight along a tree edge back in the thicker underbrush. This way if a rabbit or squirrel or deer comes along they can pounce. I think that when the crops are up they just lay in the corn fields too.
 
Originally Posted By: 1badboyHas anyone ever found one ?
I've found a few and found an unbelievable one the othe other day while tracking a wounded coyote.
Had 2 go by me when I was looking for it and another almost attack me when I called it in with vocalizations !
The dam thing ran right at me downwind looking right at me barking !
It's an area I've taken a bunch of coyotes over the years.
I'm going to put a bait with my HD cam in there with audio and see what I can come up with.


Territorial coyotes specifically. Have preferred bedding areas. When the wind is from a specific direction. I've seen many times where territorial coyote(s). Have used the same general area, over & over again.

Snafu
 
found an area once that had several trees knocked down midsummer who's leafy canopy just above ground level gave them a perfect bedding area. we cut some of the initial branches out to start to clear it and found lots of scat, and what we assumed were clearly bedding spots.

they abandoned it quite quickly of course as we disturbed it. but based on what we found it couldn't have been anything but.
 
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