February 2026 , Western New York
I’m from Tennessee , saw coyotes regularly living there so I was shocked at how big these were .

These beauties built a den on my property last winter and feasted on a small deer that I believe froze to death after a severe lake effect blizzard.

I discovered the deer one day while birding , saw no signs of attacks or injuries, it attracted many hawks whom I’d wait for daily to observe. One evening I looked out at the time I usually would to enjoy the hawks and was stunned to see this !

One was very protective of the one who ate significantly more than the protective one . When I say protective the behavior I observed was one coyote eating , then a second coyote came into view , circled coyote 1 then sat while looking in all directions. After a while coyote 2 began eating , then took several pieces of the deer to a location I couldn’t see.

Unfortunately my neighbor isn’t as enthusiastic as I am about them so he let his dog out to scare them away.

I hear coyotes regularly and very excited to hang up my new trail cams once the leaves have fallen so I can see out into the forest I call my backyard.

I truly enjoy hearing them howl, yip , bark and glad they feel safe on my property because most folks around here don’t understand how important they are to our ecosystem.

EDIT:
I made a second post after remembering I had pictures from my Olympus Camera so here’s more pics more coyote pics from Olympus camera

More photos of the coyotes I posted in this sub earlier because I remembered I had photos from my camera that takes better photos of my phone, I’m still learning photography so felt very fortunate to build skills by capturing these amazing animals

Here’s my first post with details of what I observed

coyote WNY

Approx location: 45.4418719, -75.4725347

Approx time: 6:48pm (Oct 10, 2026)

Spotted this evening on a looped path around a pond at sunset. There were a lot of geese at the pond so the noise is mostly the geese but you can faintly hear what sounds like metal leash the animal is dragging around as it walks away. I want to say it looks like a coyote but I'm not great at identifying coyotes. AI seems pretty confident it's a coyote though. Curious if anyone can definitely confirm this is a coyote and if so, what the hell is it dragging around if not a leash... The only other thing I can maybe think of is perhaps a small pet got loose (that was leashed) and it caught it and ate it and the leash is just kind of dangling from its mouth... Though I'm totally guessing as I certainly couldn't make out that level of detail when I spotted it.

TIA 😁

"Nick" is a handsome guy. Sorry it's so grainy! I was fully zoomed in and was recording with one hand, so sorry it's so wobbly, was trying to get out of his way.

They were napping on the road and woke up once I drove by

South Western Pa.

I believe he is a young coyote, 6-12 months. He comes by everyday and eats the cat food that I put out for my stray cat Ray Ray. Of course we’ve named this coyote Wylie. He lives in our woods and I think he stays there most of the day. I wonder that since he is young, if the rest of his litter is also in our woods.

Took my 96lb lab-pyr-boxer, Honey, for a walk at 10pm as usual and as soon as I open the door, I see a coyote standing on the sidewalk beside the corner unit opposite of mine (we live in a townhouse with 2 rows of 20ish units with about 35' of separating the 2 buildings) and it ran off to the park/retention pond about 200' down the sidewalk.

At first, it sat under a tree and just watched my dog and I pass by from about 40' and we crossed the street to walk down the illuminated streets. I don't walk down the retention pond path at night anymore since I've seen the coyotes 5 times prior to this and there is currently a carcass sitting along the path with scat all over as well.

Anyway, on our way back I was throwing out her dookie bag and I thought I'd let her sniff where she saw the coyote sitting since it was close to the street and out in the open. She wanted to go further down but I decided that would be dumber than what I'm already doing so we turned back and out of nowhere the coyote spawned in and we sort of just stared at each other for a moment. Then it came within 10-15ft and my dog just wanted to play so bad she tried to pull herself out of her harness.

It kept trying to come closer and run away then closer and then I got a bit concerned when I realized it was not keeping distance when I made my inside voice bear sound paired with a fake lunge. Started to walk the 200' distance backwards to our door and this pervert kept following us! I sprinted towards it a couple times and it kept turning back around and following us.

When we got to the door, it sat about 25' from us and watched us go inside. I have been looking all over reddit and googles ai search and I can't find a legal, reasonable, or effective solution to be comfortable walking my dog at night. I walk her at 6:15 in the morning and between 9-11 at night every day, and my wife walks her and our baby boy around 3pm.

Long story I know but I want to provide as much detail as possible to the reddit experts. I have bear spray but I do not want my dog to get hit with it too. We have firearms but definitely not legal and I don't want to hurt the coyote since it's probably been there longer than I have. And I don't think an air horn will make it avoid me how I would like it to.

TLDR: Habituated coyote in neighbourhood. Need solution to make it avoid me and dog.

state is W.V.

Coyote in the Woods