Seen Tuesday 7-22-08 near Central and Orrington.

At 9:05 pm Monday, 7/21 Margi and I were leaving the Office Depot parking lot on Jenks. A Red Fox passed us going East at a good gait. He looked both ways, crossed Green Bay Rd., vaulted the wall and climbed the embankment toward the railroad tracks. He was gone in five seconds. I don't know who was more startled.

In our continuing popular series on local wildlife, we offer this image of a wild mouse recently photographed in a front yard in the Central Street neighborhood. I believe this to be a white-footed mouse, a species originally from the woodlands, but which then moved into the former prairies of Illinois.

Rabbits used to be somewhat scarce on my block, but, like the chipmunk population, proliferated after West Nile Virus chased away all the bluejays and crows. Not always easy to get close to the common cottontail, but this bunny cooperated by posing quite still.

At least 10 different species of warm-blooded animals frequent our neighborhood, including this fine specimen I spotted waddling around this winter during a brief thaw. Who is it? Maybe a CSNA board member playing possum on this website....

A spirited discussion on Evanston coyotes has broken out on evanstonnow.com following a warning post by 7th Ward activist and possible aldermanic candidate Junad Rizki. No doubt Junad fears for the safety of his pig, which if eaten would be a true civic loss.

Coincidentally, on the heels of this discussion, I got a call Friday night from a neighbor advising me that a coyote had been visible and active in a backyard on the 2700 block of Harrison St. much of Friday

, sending a neighbor's poodle (safely inside a house) into fits, and had eventually slinked under a deck two yards over from mine. Altho some might be alarmed, my neighbor said she thought it was "neat," and the next neighbor I told about it also volunteered that the coyotes have a right to be here. So I stopped warning folks, altho owners of small dogs should consider not putting them outside unattended. Breeds downsized for cuteness are no match for a wily critter with longer legs, bigger teeth, and an undiscriminating palate.

It appears that coyote sightings are up slightly in Evanston lately, altho they've been around for years. But no one should panic; as I posted on evanstonnow, coyote attacks on humans are really, really rare. If you see one, just let it go its way and you yours.

We considered keeping the cats inside Friday night, but they wanted to go out and check out the situation. They came back unscathed, complaining only that coyote vigil duty entitled them to an extra round of cat food. Cats will use any excuse.

I never saw the varmint. Presumably it fled before the Saturday onslaught of leaf blowers hit the block. If not, I may crawl under that deck and see if the coyote has taken up residence, and if so, would it like to register to vote. Or maybe run for office. Coyotes are efficient, lean, and rarely say too much.

We humans share Evanston with a lot of wildlife. Over spring break, my daughter called me down to take a look at some "strange bird" sitting on a branch in a backyard tree. It was a large hawk, which Barb Mitchell thinks is the red-tailed hawk she says she's seen around here for years, and whose call I've heard, but the coloration and markings to me looked more like a Swainson's hawk in the light phase, or even a Cooper's hawk. Dunno, by the time I grabbed a camera, it'd gone. One morning last summer, going out to get the paper, my wife saw a coyote trotting down the sidewalk on Harrison St. Of course there is the raccoon family who have visited us nightly for the last 18 years in warm weather; by now they seem like old friends. This year there are more babies than last, one night recently I watched a troupe of 6. Possums, skunks, the ubiquitous squirrels, several species of mice....and the oddest, the rare flying squirrel. My cats have brought home 2 in all the time we've lived here, tho, so I know they're out there. If you watch at dusk you can occasionally see bats. Chipmunks and rabbits are much more numerous since West Nile hit a few years ago, since that virus wiped out so many crows and bluejays who preyed on the small rodents.

I think it's cool that there's this little hybrid ecosystem going on around all around us, especially at night, even tho our animal neighbors' agendas are sometimes a little different than ours. The animals, of course, were here first, and never signed any treaties with settlers. By and large they mind their own business, altho some of the squirrels seem a little OCD in their gnawing and hoarding, and raccoons sometimes leave a deck or patio area looking like there was a wild teen party. The Humane Society of the US has a nice web page on living with urban wildlife. Click to their second page and there are specific suggestions on dealing with various species.