Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

It was the perfect time and temperature for naps, surrounded by mamas and aunties. Keep your eye on the little black beauty with the giant star at far left behind mama …

🙂

This little charmer was by far the most curious of the three foals in this band, often grazing her way oh-so-casually into the view of the camera. 🙂 The bay filly in the background might be her big sister; they were often close to the same mare (not pictured).

Pretty mamas and babies on Green Mountain.

This is a band of 13 in the same meadow as the band of three previously pictured. Rocks are scattered throughout this beautiful meadow in the forest, and a few of them served as perfect perches during my visit. I’d love to know more about the geology that caused the placement of the rocks, but mostly I was happy to just sit and enjoy the scenery!

This was my last close view of the little family as I turned my attention to the bigger band toward the end of my visit. I love how baby girl is sandwiched between mama and daddy, completely and totally safe and protected.

I did say he was stout!

To be clear, I’m not sure whether he is, in fact, the filly’s sire, but they were clearly affectionate with each other. 🙂

This is the stout, hunky stallion with the sabino mare and sorrel filly in the previous post.

All that hunkiness … and look at his lovely white eyelashes. 🙂 What a dreamboat! 🙂

This pretty sabino mare and her lovely filly are with a stunning dark-grey stallion on Green Mountain.

By the time I’ve shown a number of photos of these gorgeous ponies, I’ll have run out of adjectives!

Many wild horses share something in common from range to range: Curiosity. 🙂

This youngster is with a beautiful band on Green Mountain in Wyoming.

When I think of ranges in the West where wild horses roam (as) freely (as possible), it’s hard to imagine a place so completely different from Spring Creek Basin than Pryor Mountain, which straddles the Wyoming/Montana border (drawn, of course, by human hands and machinations).

And then I visited Green Mountain, in central(ish) Wyoming.

My first visit, last year, wasn’t too crazy different, but I was, only briefly, in one very small spot of the whole herd management area. That small region of the area was wide open, and I saw a lot of horses during that visit, and of course, it made me eager for another opportunity to visit.

THIS year, blog reader and friend Prairie Girl (Lynn H.) gave me directions to a different part of the range – the top of the mountain! – saying that’s where I’d find the horses at this time of year, not down below, where they’d been the previous spring.

As it turned out, I found many more human beings (and their RVs and campers) than any four-legged wildlife (one elk cow and a handful of deer, as well as a couple of chipmunks), but in the very last place I looked (after taking in amazing (seriously – AHHH-MAZ-ING) views from the top of Green Mountain), I did finally find horses – right where Lynn had indicated on her map that there are “always” horses! 🙂

The horse pictured above is a stallion (I think), and he was with another stallion (I think). I spotted them at the edge of the trees at the edge of the road, and the above pic is the best I could get of him, from my Jeep, before he and his buddy slipped silently deeper into the forest.

It’s not easy (!) to spot horses in this amazing forested landscape (yes, this is a BLM herd management area), but it’s incredibly rewarding when it happens.

Huge thanks to Lynn for the directions and other information about finding these mustangs that are very near and dear to her!