Good evening fellow nature fans! Tonight's Daily Nature Fix is about an experience my friend and I had while camping in Death Valley National Park. Towards the northern end of the park, we stopped at a ranger station that was closed at the time. They had a water spigot out front though, so we were re-filling our canteens. Behind us, we heard something moving around in the scrub bushes. We turned around to see this about 15 yards away!
The coyote looked as surprised to see us and we were to see it. The staring contest didn't last too long though. He/she quickly got distracted by a nearby piece of food left on the blacktop by a tourist. After gobbling it up, it was back on it's way into the open desert.
Later that same evening, also near the northern tip of the park, we stopped to check out this desert villa that people said we had to see called "Scotty's Castle". Neither myself or my buddy wanted to spend too much time there though, as we wanted to get out into nature away from development, not go out of our way to see it. That being said, we just pulled the Jeep off the road a bit and looked around. As I was panning around the grounds of the property with my telephoto lens, I was actually pretty startled to suddenly see this in my face:
Another coyote around 15 yards away. Just sitting there staring me right in the face. I took a bunch of photos and after about a minute or so, he stood up and trotted in the bushes behind him. That's when I saw the rest of his band, further away. Unfortunately, I didn't get a good photo of all of them, but this was the closest:
We really weren't expecting to see much wildlife on this trip, so seeing these coyotes was a HUGE bonus. Actually, aside from them, all we saw were some scorpions. I was hoping to hear the howling in the desert sunsets, but didn't hear any.... maybe next time!
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***Daily Nature Fix is a daily blog showcasing the natural world. It is all original content using photos, stories, and experiences from my own travels.***
