The Firethorn or Pyracantha (Pyracantha spp.) bushes in my yard are now covered with ripe, scarlet berries.

Firethorns are cultivated, evergreen shrubs with thorny branches, dark green leaves, white flowers and orange or red berries. I like the ones with red berries the best, so I only planted red-berried Pyracantha cultivars.

The berries are edible, but unfortunately they taste like dry, old, mealy apples. Birds and animals love them though, and my Firethorn bushes are quickly losing their berries to the hungry wildlife.

Recently, I started hearing rustling in the Firethorn bushes outside of my bedroom window late at night, along with the repeated sound of something heavy falling onto the bed of rocks below. It kept waking me up, and I was afraid that it might be a creepy person lurking in the bushes or something. I eventually discovered that the lurker was actually a Coyote. Because the Javelinas have already eaten all of the Firethorn leaves and berries within close reach of the ground, the Coyote was having to jump quite high for hanging berry clusters, causing the strange noises that I heard. These noises still wake me up, but I'm relieved that it's just a weird Coyote with a taste for Firethorn berries and not a weird human.