The Coy O’Tay’s here use the feral cats in the arroyo as their own Specialty Snack Bar. There are hares in the mix, so the variety is endless.
I’m glad your kittehs are all safe!
Of course the difference is that people expect to find Coy O’Tays out in your general direction. After all, we have seen Roadrunner cartoons..
The general pop-u-los don’t think of NY as a Coy O’Tay haunt but we have representatives of the Wile E. Coyote clan alive and well here (and even in NYC I understand) and we have their mulatto version where the Coy O’Tay falls in lust for a Phydeaux and produces a litter of Coydeaux’s. We have a pack of Coy O’Tay’s (maybe more than one) that makes a circuit of their ‘territory’ on about a two - three week cycle. When they come around they usually signal their presence with their yipping and you (and the cats) know they’re out there.
And then we have one or more lone wolves, er, well, you know what I mean. They don’t seem to run with a pack, they tend to stay out of sight, and if and when you do manage to see one it is always alone. And they aren’t particularly afraid of humans, they just don’t like to be seen. We had one walk up the East driveway from the road, pass within thirty feet of me and continue on northward past the silo. I started walking behind it keeping the same distance and when it got to the end of the area I mow (which becomes a rocky area that once was the boundary of a pond that has been compromised over the years and only has water in it after a monsoon) it stopped, turned, and started advancing at me. Since all I had was the flashlight, I chose not to see how close it would get so I stopped. It did too, then turned and disappeared into the thickets.
That one was a reddish-grayish coat. (Sort of German Shepard but with red tossed in.) The one last night was more brown-reddish so it wasn’t the same one. I suspicion that both are Coydeaux’s but the fact that they apparently aren’t afraid of humans is a bit disconcerting.
Since I can’t carry an assault weapon around (after all, the ones that survived the terrible boating accident are buried in the field east of the silo..) but I don’t like having only a flashlight for defense, I now go on the nightly kitty-retrieval mission carrying a really sharp machete. That way at least if I come upon a critter that does wish to engage, the blood at the scene of the altercation will not be all mine...
But... since these Coy-critters of whatever lineage come into the clear so rarely, it’s really frustrating when you do see one that you aren’t prepared to perforate it. Especially when one appears in a direction where there are no habitations for several miles so if a perforating round misses it will only find a tree to hit..