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Prairie Dogs, and Coyotes, and Raptors—Oh My!
by Ruth Carol Cushman; Photography by Glenn Cushman

Prairie dogs can be a nuisance. In pre-settlement days, they had almost limitless space for their towns to expand so small patches were not overgrazed, and there were no exotic plants to rush in and colonize disturbed areas. Now their habitat is so constricted that they often denude their immediate surroundings, giving cheat grass, bindweed, thistles, and other noxious weeds an opening.

However, they are called a keystone species with good reason. Without them, we would see far fewer coyotes, hawks, eagles, and other animals that depend on them for food or use their burrows.

My husband Glenn and I are lucky enough to have a thriving prairie dog town just north of our home. Perhaps the best thing we do to encourage wildlife in our yard is just letting the prairie dogs alone. They serve as bait. We have watched golden eagles and red-tailed hawks munching on the fat rodents. Peregrine falcons and bald eagles have perched on our dead snags, surveying the colony. And early one morning Glenn saw a great horned owl fly by our front window carrying a prairie dog.

The coyotes, though, are what thrill us the most. We often hear them chorusing at night, fast, yippy notes mingling with long, forlorn calls. We watch them hunting for mice and voles early in the morning, sometimes pouncing with all four paws in the air. Occasionally we see them actually catch a prairie dog.

For several years we have enjoyed coyote pups romping and jostling each other just outside our front window. Sometimes two pups play tug of war with a stick. Sometimes a pup will come up to our front door and try to play with his image in the glass. He will nose his reflection, leaving smudge marks all over the door, and sometimes he throws his whole body against the unresponsive coyote in the mirror. And then there was the pup this summer who stopped to smell the Sweet William.

Such moments make it easier to accept the damage done by prairie dogs who make all this magic possible. Perhaps, some day, a badger or a burrowing owl will appear.