The sounds heard in the woods at this time of year offer an amazing change from the sounds of early summer.

Back then, melodic bird songs seemed to engulf the forest and mixed with a mélange of croaking, cawing and buzzing, the latter the less-pleasurable sound of mosquitoes and deer flies. There was a lot going on in the forest from mating to nest building to raising the next generation.

Now, things have quieted down as the young birds have grown and many prepare for their long journey south. One sound, however, that I wish would go away is the incessant yapping of coyotes at night not too far off in the distance from my house. This happens every August and September when the pups grow big enough to travel with the adults. Why do they howl? To find the answer, I first looked at one of their close relatives -- the southern Quebec wolf.

Wolves at this time of year up there howl to locate each other; their usual set-up is the adults hunting while the pups stay with one adult wolf that acts as a babysitter. The adults hunt near open bogs and marshes so their sound carries. Now is one of the best times to call these creatures.

Our eastern version of the western coyote is larger, probably due to the wolf genes it contains, yet the howling from a pack of local coyotes can't be mistaken for wolves, and, according to research done at Penn State University, their reasons for howling may be slightly different.

Professor Gary San Julian, according to the Penn State Web site, states, "Howling is a basic communication behavior in coyotes. It has several functions. One is to call the pack -- really a family group -- back together again after a period of individual hunting." Most of the recent pack howling I've heard seems more like a chaotic celebration than a call to unity because all the noises are condensed, not coming from different directions. But who knows, sounds can be deceiving.

"A second reason coyotes howl," San Julian says, "is to advertise their presence to other packs, essentially warning those other family groups (or packs) against trespassing across territorial boundaries." In this way, coyotes, like wolves, delineate territory. I don't know if either of these examples fits why the coyotes are howling near my house.

However, the day after the evening yapping concert I often travel to places I've seen deer regularly, and with every trip I see less and less deer. If the coyotes had a successful hunt, usually the crows indicate this as they are expert scavengers, but a pack of coyotes can clean up deer carcass in one night. Then again, maybe the fewer deer sightings are a coincidence.

I don't dislike coyotes; they have to survive, too. I just wish they would do so in some other neighborhood.

daprill2000@yahoo.com