Chipeta has a disdain for paparazzi, which is too bad because she’s such a lovely subject. 🙂 She just makes the photographer work for her glamour shots!
Movin’ with the light
21 10 2023Comments : 10 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Accentuated
20 10 2023
Elegant Alegre in the golden autumn evening light.
Comments : 4 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Together
19 10 2023
Piedra was probably a 2-year-old and Kestrel was a weanling when I met them 16 years ago and documented them in the same large band. These girls have been in separate bands, both far apart and traveling together, then in the same band together for the last few years (I’ve lost track).
There are others with them, and the lead stallions have changed, but they’re – still – almost always together. When the band moves on and one is still grazing out of sight on a bench between an arroyo and the hilltop, the other one will wait for her friend until she comes into view, so they can follow together.
They’ve been through the roundups of 2007 and 2011 and come out free the other side. They’ve had babies, and those babies have had babies. They’re just two lifelong friends who rely on and depend upon each other, and enjoy the freedom of the mustang life. Together.
Comments : 13 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Jewel in the amber
18 10 2023
Who *doesn’t* adore backlighting?!
Comments : 6 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Awareness
17 10 2023
The afternoon after the morning eclipse … the Shadow appeared. 🙂
Comments : 10 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Aunties
16 10 2023
Baby Odin has a number of devoted aunties looking after him and teaching him the way of the wild. 🙂
Comments : 10 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Eclipse light
15 10 2023
For us in Southwest Colorado, the “peak” of the annular eclipse was supposed to be at 10:30 a.m. The “path of annular solar eclipse” passed directly over the Four Corners, just south of Disappointment Valley.
I didn’t get any eclipse glasses, and I didn’t get a special filter for my camera lens. I just wanted to be *out there*, and with any luck, with a band of mustangs in Spring Creek Basin.
Although this wasn’t to be a solid eclipse, just (!) a “ring of fire,” and though I was out of the main path, my location was close enough that I thought there would be a noticeable change. … There was a slight dimming of the blazing, full-blue-sky sunshine – though my camera seemed to recognize it better than I did, and I had to crank the ISO higher to get enough shutter speed as bright as it was (seemed to be). My shadow seemed a bit “shimmery” at the edges. It’s usually very quiet out in the basin (unless it’s windy, which is usual), but it seemed maybe a bit *more* quiet. And the air, which started the morning in the 30s and was warming up by 10:30, seemed to get a bit chillier again, like going down through a draw or creek bed.
Subtle. 🙂
The eclipse *did* create these crescent-shaped shadows through some vegetation. This pic was taken at 10:22 a.m. The top pic of Sundance was taken at 10:30:25 a.m. When my shadow lost its shimmery edges, I figured the eclipse had passed. (Does anyone else think the image between the obvious crescents looks like a horse?!)
Rewind a day, and this sundog graced our southwest sky on Friday evening:
There was a sundog on both sides of the sun, but the one to the left was brighter.
Bonus celestial wonders the last couple of days!
Comments : 12 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Temple Butte
That old cold wind
14 10 2023
We’ve been enjoying a remarkable and glorious autumn here in Southwest Colorado, and I will admit that I’ve been daydreaming about a few clouds in that otherwise unblemished turquoise sky.
As the weather does in Colorado (everywhere, really), it has changed now, and Ol’ Man Winter is starting to howl out of the north. Parts of Colorado (the mountainous parts, which is not us in Disappointment Valley) have already seen snow. We did get some of those longed-for clouds, but they likely won’t bring us moisture here in our corner.
As for the wind, Mariah models her namesake well, don’t you think?? Watching a pair drink at a nearby pond her band had already been to and left, she looks just as glorious and wild as our wondrous weather.
Speaking of the sky, don’t forget your eclipse glasses if you’re watching the annular eclipse this morning. The “ring of fire” should be on full display at about 10:30 a.m. MDT over the Four Corners region.
Comments : 10 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Biggest heart
13 10 2023
And most glorious view. 🙂
If you look closely (?), you can maybe see the golden aspen blanketing the flanks of the not-too-far-away La Sal Mountains in Utah.
Comments : 9 Comments »
Categories : Disappointment Valley, La Sal Mountains, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Gettin’ to know each other
12 10 2023
Flash and Houdini are still a little bit “together … separately.” Getting to know each other.
I love his expressions. 🙂
I love her wisdom. 🙂
Comments : 10 Comments »
Categories : Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 