I mentioned in my November newsletter that I’d had a wolf sighting. That made it out onto the wire today via an AP story:
http://news.yahoo.com/wandering-wolf-inspires-hope-dread-094012216.html
All of this is pretty accurate from what I told Jeff (the reporter) but as usual, that’s not the whole story.
One new add-on tidbit…about a week, maybe 10 days ago, I heard a wolf howl. Whether he/she was responding to my sled dogs, or they were responding to him/her, I don’t know.
I was outside my house, just behind Crystalwood Lodge, and my dog yard started singing. Those of you that have been here know that the Lodge is on the south side of a knoll overlooking the front meadow to the west (where I saw OR-7 in late October) and the Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge to the east. My sled dog yard is on the north side of the knoll, tucked away enough not to bother guests, but close enough I can hear what’s going on if there’s a problem or commotion.
The dogs occasionally sing (howl) a couple of times during the day, often at dawn and dusk and every once in a while during the day, usually as a “thank you, we’re feeling good” howl after feeding, which often sounds like this: Dogyard After Dinner Song. This howl was later afternoon, but still light out, so maybe 4-4:30pm, I was just walking back from the Lodge to my house having put the dog food and water away after coming back from feeding.
I heard the yard start to sing — and immediately a distant but distinctive reply. I’m pretty doggone sure it wasn’t a coyote howl — if you’ve ever heard the two, coyote howls vs. wolf howls, they’re quite different. Coyotes have short bursts of howling, and it then goes into yips and yaps. Their songs are much shorter, more variable in tone and melody, kinda all over the place.
This distant howl, coming from the north toward Crater Lake, was a long, single tone, solitary howl…much like I’ve heard in wolf country in Northern Minnesota or Alaska. It was pretty far away, but carried really well…this animal certainly had a good set of lungs!
The dogs heard it too, and it re-energized their singing. The distant howler and the sled dogs sang together for maybe a minute, then the winter stillness enveloped us all again.
Hope you can come for a visit here at Crystalwood Lodge and perhaps hear for yourself and offer your opinion as to what it is! And don’t forget to take advantage of our year-end booking special for 2011 to secure your private getaway anytime before 6/30/2012 (including holidays!)
We’ll be waiting for youuuuuuuuuuuu…. 
