ORIGINAL: bomccarthy
Growing up in the Whittier hills with a whole string of outdoor cats (we would lose them to coyotes on a fairly regular basis), mockingbirds were pests. They would dive-bomb our cats while we were standing a foot away. A couple of our cats were decent hunters and could occasionally catch a mockingbird as s/he pulled out of the dive, but most tried to run and hide.
Coyotes have pretty much overrun most of Southern California in the past 15 years, even heavily populated areas. I nearly ran one over in the middle of the day on a residential street in San Marino. Tired of trash strewn all over the yard, my brother-in-law nailed one with an arrow in Whittier on a recent night; my sister made him clean up the blood (which trailed to a neighbors front yard) before anyone noticed. They couldn't find the body and it hasn't deterred any other coyotes.
Sounds like you have lived in my old neck of the woods most of your life. I grew up in Monterey Park. When I was a teenager I used to take drives around San Marino when I wanted to get away from my crazy mother.
We used to go out to Whittier to go to the Kodak warehouse all the time. My father was a professional photographer and sold supplies as a side business to other professional photographers. Kodak would deliver, but when he had a rush order we would have to go out to the warehouse and pick it up.
I didn't realize coyotes had become such a problem. They were rare when I was growing up. There was a flock of wild parrots in the neighborhood (escaped from an overturned exotic animals truck on the Pomona Freeway) and some massive lizards (up to three feet long), but the rest of the wildlife was pretty small.
Bill