While you and Don were enjoying the barnyard animals, Zima was enjoying a different
kind of wildlif.
She will often roll in any dead carcass in order to smell like the animal she hopes
to capture for lunch. This way they think she is just another one of them. I first
discovered this last year when we were hiking and came across the remains of
a deer. Zima, being the coyote she is, spent several minutes rolling in the remains,
before we moved on. A few miles down the trail, we happened across a deer
crossing the path. Zima couldn't have been more than 2 feet from the deer, but
the deer didn't smell Zima as she had perfumed herself with deer odor, so the deer
just kept walking not realizing there was a coyote within striking distance.
Well, today, we came across the corpse of a black bear in the woods and Zima
couldn't help herself. Talk about the coat on a sheep, this bear had at least 4 inches
of lush black fur. After rolling in this lushness for what seemed hours to me,
Zima and I continued. But I stayed a long way back from that coyote that smelled
like a dead bear for the rest of the day.