Coyotes at the Bridge: Male Marking & Female Marking

Note how both male and female coyotes lift a hind leg when marking--but the male sticks his leg out behind him, while the female keeps hers crooked and slanting slightly forward.

This handy tip for telling the sexes apart comes from Hope Ryden in her marvelous book, God's Dog.  When she first began studying coyotes, she assumed, as most of us do, that like dogs they would indicate their maleness or femaleness by lifting a leg or squatting.   She thought she was seeing an extraordinary number of same sex couples!   But then she noticed the tell-tale difference and passed this helpful thing-to-look-for on to her readers.

Red-Gray has been around for awhile.   He could well be the son of Big Gray and Miss Red, whose courtship we witnessed 3 years ago, at just about this time of year.   Their flirtation is shown in the preceding video from 2012, "Big Gray and Miss Red: A Duo."

If Red-Gray is setting up housekeeping, we congratulate him and his young bride!  May they have a long and happy life together!