From her vantage point on a slight rise, Reya was in the perfect post from which to observe the comings and goings (OK, mostly also nappings) of her fellow ponies (another band and a lone, wandering bachelor).
I’m loving her mud coat and her fairy-knotted braids.
And just like that, on a glorious fall evening, in Spring Creek Basin, a couple of gettin’-fuzzy wild ponies stole the show, minutes before the sun faded to shade, and I hit the shutter on possibly one of my favorite pix ever.
Juniper and Storm. Sweetest of wild hearts.
Pretty, windblown Seneca looks back over her shoulder almost to check that I see the approaching band.
Hers had just left water, and another band was coming in.
I’m glad I didn’t miss either band of beautiful ponies.
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!
Elegant Alegre in the golden autumn evening light.
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.
Who *doesn’t* adore backlighting?!
The afternoon after the morning eclipse … the Shadow appeared. 🙂
Baby Odin has a number of devoted aunties looking after him and teaching him the way of the wild. 🙂
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!
