Coyotes!

I know that sometimes coyotes are within earshot of the school I work at, because my colleague Ray would hear them a couple of years ago when he was working late at night.

But I was very surprised to hear them just now, sitting here in my classroom planning lessons, because it's three o'clock in the afternoon.

Man are they loud! It's a whole orchestra of howls, concentrated a hundred yards or so away in the scrub along the base of a cliff that runs in front of the school. (So there's little doubt in my mind that it is definitely a pack of coyotes, and not just neighborhood dogs.)

My Google search "Why do coyotes howl?" provided a good clue as to why these coyotes might be howling in the middle of the day: underneath their ruckus, I could hear an emergency vehicle siren in the distance.

It is eerie and forboding to stand outside right now, especially when they are so close. I can't imagine how much more eerie it would be in the dark!