During those magical moments on the trail when we see a gorgeous and uncommon wild flower or get to observe a magnificent bird fly by at close range, my dad never fails to exclaim “You gotta be there!” It’s sort of become his tagline. It’s the nature version of Wayne Gretzky’s “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” If you stay home and scroll, if you don’t venture out to explore, you don’t get to have these awesome experiences.
This coyote and I had one of those moments. Look at those eyes. That coyote was looking directly into my eyes. I was speechless, scared for a millisecond, and then, I gave in to the extraordinary moment. Here I was in Brown County, in a sprawling urban area, and I was, incredibly, alone with a gorgeous coyote.
This is the third time I’d met this coyote, but this was by far the closest we’d been to one another. Each of the times I’d seen it, it was crossing farther down the ice-covered river. Now, I watched from my favorite lookout on one side of an ice-covered river. The coyote kept an eye on me from behind the branches of a fallen tree on the other side of the river. It was just the coyote and me frozen in that moment…or so I thought.
As the seconds passed by, the coyote turned its head in the direction it had been traveling, towards the fallen tree, and then back to me. It did this several times. It seemed to be trying to decide whether to cross the river and continue on its way or change direction because of my unexpected and potentially threatening presence.
I whistled quietly, gently to it. I’m not sure why. A whistle wouldn’t frighten it and I wasn’t trying to frighten it. Maybe on some level, I was offering a greeting to a fellow animal as would to other hikers when on the trail. Regardless, the coyote did not care at all.
After a few beats, it moved to the base of the large tree trunk and stood with its front legs up on the trunk, swinging its gaze between me and the end of the fallen tree. And then I saw it.
There was a beautiful otter at the end of the tree, doing the delightfully ridiculous dance they do when they are scent marking. It was even closer to me than the coyote. I literally looked around to see if I was being pranked. A coyote and an otter together? Only separated by a narrow segment of the river? It was so fantastical I couldn’t believe it was happening.
The coyote wasn’t trying to cross the river at all. It had been hunting the otter. It was probably trying to decide if I was a bigger threat than the otter breakfast was worth.
I had been trying to see an otter in the wild for two years. I’ve been keeping track of scat, slides, tracks, and other sign to zero in on the best place to see one. It was the very reason I was at that spot in the first place. Incredibly, the coyote led me right to an otter. I would never have seen it if the coyote hadn’t shown me.
Ultimately, the coyote disappeared while I observed the otter. The otter finished marking its spot and disappeared, blending into the tree and branches as it went. I was alone again, trying to hold on to the details of the extraordinary experience.
The whole experience happened in just three minutes. It was easily the best “you gotta be there” experience of my life.
You have to get out into the world in whatever capacity brings you joy for those amazing, joyful, and bucket-filling moments to happen. You have to start, you have to get up, and you gotta be there for those moments to happen.
Maybe this was a once in a lifetime experience, but I’ll never make it a twice in a lifetime experience if I don’t keep getting out there. See you on the trail!
Wow!! What an amazing experience.