Wind not all that's howling as wily coyote 'visits' business

With temperatures hovering in the single digits Monday morning and windchills howling along at -20 or so, it definitely wasn't a fit day outside for man nor beast.

And the folks at a Greencastle business can attest to that.

For about 8:30 in the morning, a coyote crashed their quiet office setting, busting through the lower part of a glass door at a downtown area building. Owners asked that the business go unnamed for security reasons.

The office manager heard the commotion and said she thought a customer must have fallen coming in the door.

"I was standing at the copier," she told the Banner Graphic, "when I heard the worst racket. I thought someone had fallen."

As she turned around and moved toward the door, she saw an animal get up and immediately run into the waiting room off to the right, where it jumped up at a mirror and left a bloody smudge.

"I thought it was a dog or something," she surmised until she saw the four-legged intruder turn tail and go out through the almost circular hole in the glass left behind by its smashing entry.

"Seeing it going out," she said, "I saw then it was a coyote."

Apparently the not-so-wily coyote mistook a reflection in the glass door for an outdoor setting.

The whole thing was over so quickly the office staff didn't have time to ponder what might have happened if the coyote hadn't made like Elvis and left the building.

"It happened so fast," she said, "but it sure woke us all up."

Residents to the east of downtown have often reported seeing deer in their neck of the woods, and last year coyotes became a concern in the Northwood Addition, as well as the area around the Armory as residents there reported cats and small dogs turning up missing after being let out at night.

But spotting a coyote in the middle of town in broad daylight is a rarity, let alone seeing one come crashing through the front door.

Apparently, as the officer manager so aptly noted, "everybody wants to get in from the cold, including coyotes."