Here is a story from my Dad this morning......
This all took place in a period of 1 and 1/2 hours.
I looked across the river in the open field of Bernards, there was 6 deer, in an old trail, stuck right in the middle, they were in a very tight bunch. Two coyotes were playing grab ass by them, the coyotes would go from one end of the line to the other, each time the deer would turn to face them. Soon there was 3, then 4, then 5 coyotes. Two big old males, an older female that was the leader and I would guess 2 young ones, they are starting to show signs of rutting, after a while the old males run the young with their tails between their legs down over the hill, 1 old dog lay down to watch them the other went back to help the female with the deer. The female defiantly wanted to take the deer into the brush by the spring, she would jump at the lead doe and the doe would make a jump at her, the coyote kept backing up and the doe kept chasing her, thus stringing the deer knot into a line, the male was laying in a leaping position 6 feet from the trail, the deer had to go by him, they would hold back then rush by, thus making the line of 6 longer and longer. When there was one deer left the male jumped in front of it turning it around, the female come in on the other end. The deer would face one and the other would grab it's legs, the deer would spin and the other would grab it. In the mean time I could see the other male and one of the younger coyotes, they just lay there watching. From the start I could see magpies flitting around the area. The coyotes were working on the crust and the deer were in crust to their knees even in the old trail, they were having trouble pulling their legs lose.
Soon the doe made a run for the timber, the dogs grabbing at it, when it got into the trees I couldn't see it any more, the other coyotes joined the kill. In 5 minuets a golden eagle come landing on a tree right above where the kill was, in 5 more min. another one come. 10 minuets later 4 deer come out of the brush onto the north hill, they were very nervous but only walked and kept looking back, I think they were tired, after awhile they relaxed and started feeding on around the hill. The last one to come out turned around and went back into the brush, I never seen any action after that except the eagles would fly down and back.
Right from the start it looked like two groups of 3 with the deer, do you think the coyotes would kill two?? and one was the fawn of the doe that went back?
It was very interesting how they worked, and all the scavengers knew so soon, wish the brush wasn't so thick so I could have seen the whole thing.
The deer just ached like they knew one of them was going to be eaten.
