This morning I saw three coyotes in the dry river bed below Paradise Meadows, Albuquerque, NM, where I'm now living. I was in the desert looking at tracks after the snowfall last night, and stopped to get something out of my pocket.

Suddenly, a coyote walked out of the sagebrush and crossed the trail in front of me, moving on into the scrub on the other side.

I froze, just as another coyote walked out of the brush and crossed the trail at the same place, soon followed by another.

I waited for a few minutes, then walked up to where they had crossed the road and found their tracks.

I could see from the tracks that the first coyote was a mature female, and the other two were still juveniles.

Wild animals tend to walk "in-line" when traveling, to save energy, stepping on the front tracks with the hind feet. Females have wider hips for giving birth, so their hind feet are slightly to the outside of the front track on each side.

It's the opposite for males. Juveniles aren't yet sexually mature so their hind feet step into the middle of the front track.

Photos:

1. Coyote tracks
2. Tracks of three coyotes traveling together
3. rabbit tracks
4. desert below my housing subdivision after snow, with tree chola cactus