On a June 2022 trip to Antelope Island State Park in Utah, I drove off the main road and spotted movement in the brush. At first I only saw shadows. Then a coyote stepped into view, and I watched a coyote catching a meal from start to finish.
Coyote Catching A Meal Took Less Than A Minute
The coyote started stalking something out in the brush. A moment later it slipped behind a low bush and vanished from sight. For several seconds nothing moved at all. Then it stepped back into the open with something in its mouth, and I knew I had just watched a hunt succeed.
Coyotes are among the most adaptable predators in North America, and they hunt alone most of the time. The stalk is slow. The coyote keeps its head low and its body close to the ground, and it slows down even more as it closes in. Then it freezes. That pause can last a few seconds or much longer, and it ends in a quick pounce. Small rodents, rabbits, birds, and insects are all fair game, depending on the season and what is around.
Antelope Island Gives Coyotes Room To Hunt
Antelope Island sits in the Great Salt Lake and covers about 28,000 acres. Open flats, shrubby cover, and grassland mix together out there, and that mix makes good coyote habitat year-round. There is plenty of prey and plenty of ground to cover. I have seen coyotes on the island at all times of day, though early morning and late afternoon tend to produce the most activity.
Shooting From The Truck With A Bean Bag
I grabbed my camera in a hurry and rested it on the bean bag over my truck window. That setup earned its keep here. A hunting coyote does not stop and pose, and this whole sequence was over in under a minute, so there was no time to get out and set up anywhere else. The photo files show both shots at 500 mm, which is where I stayed for the whole sequence.
- Camera: Canon EOS R5
- Focal length: 500 mm
- Aperture: f/7.1
- Shutter speed: 1/2000 sec
- ISO: 4000 on Photo 1, 3200 on Photo 2
Most of my photography is a lot of waiting for a few seconds of action, and this encounter was exactly that. The timing worked out, the light cooperated, and the coyote did what coyotes do. If coyote hunts interest you, I photographed another coyote with a catch at Sequoyah: Coyote With Prey at Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge. Tell me about your own coyote sightings in the comments.