There’s a small park close to my house that is relatively wooded and has a decent size (for suburban Chicago) lake in the middle. It has a decent amount of wildlife, which is more prominent in the summer, but there’s a year-round resident who camps out in the middle of a marsh I came across twice this weekend. A reasonably large, very fluffy, very cute coyote.
On Saturday I saw him when first going out in an area close to where he’s believed to live and I decided to give chase as he was about 100 meters ahead of me, heading away from me. It was a bit of fun to see how he’d react and all I got was a fair amount of humiliation for my efforts as there’s no way in hell I’d ever be able to keep up with him.
Sunday, it was a different story. I was on my way back and spotted him again, over by the lake just ahead of me crossing the path. After crossing, I stopped and waved at him since he’d stopped and was looking over at me and was rewarded with a playful bow and a little bit of a wiggle. I won’t read into it too much like I had some kind of Disney princess experience but it was at least a fun way to end a run. I kept a look out for something he might have been eating and maybe I interrupted his mealtime but couldn’t see anything. Either way, I’ll be keeping a lookout for him on upcoming runs. And maybe keep a few biscuits at the ready in case I get another friendly curtsy.