November 30, 2022
I discovered this pair of coyotes down the road from my daughter’s home in southern california. It seems they have claimed this fenced in corner portion of a very large piece of property belonging to a school that is nestled in some hills and can’t be seen from the road. I saw them two of the three days I walked down there and numerous times driving by over my two week stay.
Besides photographing them I spent a lot of time watching them. And they watched me. And they watched cars and trucks passing by. They watched joggers jogging and they watched humans being led by dogs and stooping over to clean up after their animals. And they intently watched the birds and squirrels which would be their next meal when they got up the energy for a chase. They seemed calm and secure behind that chain link fence and because they were free to come and go at will I got the sense that they were the ones who were free, observing human animals stuck in a cage.
“For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with the extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth”.
Henry Beston
FLYING-FUR PHOTOGRAPHY 