We typically go through rather loose cycles of rabbit-years followed by coyote-years, then again. I am rather guessing this is a rabbit-year and perhaps the reason I was actively seeing coyotes in late winter is they were roaming closer to humans in search of food and perhaps many of them didn't make it through till spring. I'm not aware of any recent development that would displace them, although there are a lot of folks who don't like coyotes and there may have been some trapping. I'm OK with less predators this year as I have young chickens and next year they will be larger and smarter (as smart as a chicken can be...)
