Coyote Scat Pictures--Question

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Silverfox

New member
The smallest male coyote I shot on 1-16-2003, had this little piece of scat protruding from his anus after I got him hung up for storage last night. For you wise acres, YES, I do have better things to do than take pictures of scat, but I thought this was interesting enough to put up here.

The scat appears to have portions of the feet of some species of bird in it. I do not know what bird they are from, but was wondering if any of you might be able to identify the owner of the feet from the pictures. This coyote was taken in Williams County in NW North Dakota. We have Hungarian Partridge (not a lot of them), pheasants, and Sharptail Grouse in this area. No Ruffed Grouse or Sage Grouse reside in this part of North Dakota, although those two species do exist in parts of North Dakota. We also have various types of hawks and owls.

Thanks for any input you might have for this discussion.

Photo 1-A:

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Photo 1-B is a little more magnification of the right side of Photo 1-A:

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Photo 2-A is the opposite side of the photos of the scat you see in 1-A:

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Photo 2-B is a little more magnification of the right side of Photo 2-A:

fcc443f4.jpg
 
I saw a pile that looking to have a similar foot in it. I was pritty sure that it came from one of my neighbers Peacocks. She has lost all but 2 out of 12. Don't know about yours though. My guess would be Partridge.

Snipe /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
Thanks for the guess. Now that I think about this post, I wish I would have placed a ruler alongside the scat to give folks an idea about how big this was. Unfortunately, I threw the scat in the garbage dumpster outside. My best guess would be that this scat was about 2.75" to 3" long.
 
Silverfox,

By process of elimination I would think it to be pheasant. Sharptail have feathers all the way down their feet, the pictures seems to indicate no feathers, I also think I see a spur. Hard to tell. That is if it is pheasant size. Without a size comparison, I'm only guessing.
 
Mike Granger--thanks for the reply. I definitely think the coyotes in my corner of the state do a good job of keeping the pheasants from overpopulating the area.

Ronald--that was my exact thought as I extracted the scat from the coyote's anus. Glad it wasn't me with that thing up my butt!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
I'm not sure,, pheasent feet have a scaley appearance, these seem to have little bumps on the skin Kind of knobby, and a pheasent toe nail is black, But judging from whre it came from it would almost have to be an upland bird and the 2 choices are hun or ringneck ??
 
howler--the choices are hun, sharptail, or pheasant. Did you look at the windchill prediction for tomorrow in NW North Dakota??? Only 31º below zero. Ummmm, do you think I'll be out on a little rise calling tomorrow morning? I don't think so--I'm going to chicken out again.
 
It's definitely not from a sharptail, both sharpies and ruffies have toes bordered by small protrusions that act as snowshoes to aid in walking on snow.
I would say it's from a partridge based on it's size and length of toenail.

Keep those stories and photos comin' Silverfox!
 
Silverfox you are wrong the actual temp in Williston yesterday was 34 below about 7am tuesday,

So about the feet in question, what time of year was it, I'm thinking maybe a coot they have some pretty good toenails and although we can't see the web mabe it was digested ????
 
Come to think of it, I completely forgot to mention that these coyotes were only about 3/4 of a mile from an occupied farmstead. Would there be any domestic birds or fowl that these could have come from? Is pheasant still a possiblity?
 
hmmm...i dont know about you guys, but i think it looks more like the top part of the beek!!!...looking at a pheasant i have mounted, it looks alot more like that, then a foot????..just my guess....the way it curves and looks i say a upper beek!!!!..... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 


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