No guesses on these three glamour girls?
A hint:
Mama H has been known to take in a stray or two in her time … And that girl on the left is posing JUST like daddy (and my goodness, hasn’t she shed out grey this spring).
Triple threat
27 05 2011
Surprise! They look like they’ve been together forever … but they haven’t, of course. Who are they? 🙂
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Two of many, now of three
30 04 2011
A couple of posts ago, I put up a pic of two horses … one of the newest bands in Spring Creek Basin. I know at least two of you know who they are! No cheating. 🙂
Hint: Comanche had them (all but the stallion in the background of that previous photo (reminder: https://springcreekwild.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/always-never-the-same/)) the previous week. This week, he and his girl and his stepdaughter are together again by themselves, and the band he stole has further split – into two, of three each. So the very original band is now three bands. How’s that for confusing the hint? 🙂 I’ll try to get pix up – of the new bands – lickety split.
The eye of the colt above is such a dead giveaway … no doubting who his sire is! And the filly looks just like her brother … and like their mother! (Which has nothing to do with this post.)
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Always, never the same
27 04 2011
Comanche and Kestrel and Winona are back to their close little family … these two have Tenaz … my assumption is that Sage and Iya and baby are together (I saw horses that I think were them – Murphy’s law of wild horses: the horses you most want to find will tantalize you from behind hills and the edges of arroyos and from great distances – and then they’ll be gone when you hike in) – and Hollywood is doing fine with Piedra and baby Bri.
How quickly it all changes, eh?
Now, do you know who these two are? 🙂
No new babies, but I’ll finally have pix of Shadow’s little boy … coming soon.
Tomorrow is a big day – I’ll be talking to local third-, fourth- and fifth-graders about what I do during their Career Day in the morning, then I’ll be guide to some very special guests who are visiting Southwest Colorado from Armenia and Turkey! I’m so excited to introduce them to some of our gorgeous American mustangs!
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Tender boys
26 03 2011Monday, March 28 is the deadline to call the Dolores Public Lands Office at (970) 882-6800 *to request placement on the mailing list* to be sent the scoping letter for the Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area roundup this fall. The scoping letter then should be coming out very soon. The scoping letter also will be online, and I’ll post that link when it’s ready. The deadline for comments will be in that letter.
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Most of their interaction involved nuzzling and biting each other’s cheeks. Bounce would strike every so often, but he and/or Whisper seemed to know just how far his legs would reach, and he never came close to actually hitting Whisper (in fact, it seems to me that strikes aren’t intended to connect but to serve as either a warning or a defense of self). Whisper didn’t do any striking. Hasn’t learned it yet? No need to “defend” himself from daddy Bounce? Was it, in Bounce’s case, habit from long use?
Time, time runs away from me. For now, I tease you with slices of their lives. 🙂
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‘Off topic’
23 03 2011Yesterday at about 5 p.m. on the highway I use to commute from Mancos to Durango, a horrific wreck killed three people and sent two others by helicopter to hospitals. One vehicle apparently crossed the center line and slammed head-on into a vehicle carrying a mom and dad and two children. Killed were the driver of the one vehicle, and the dad and one of the children in the other vehicle. Both vehicles caught fire. That anyone survived must be a miracle.
I work in a newsroom. I can’t imagine being a first-responder, law-enforcement, emergency medical personnel … Listening to details emerge through the static of the scanner was horrifying. (Thank God for those people who give of themselves to respond to tragedies such as these.)
The survivors – the mom and one of the boys – were originally flown to hospitals in Durango and in Farmington. Now they’ve apparently been sent to Albuquerque and to Salt Lake City. Only in the last few hours were they identified. The single driver apparently has not yet been identified.
http://durangoherald.com/article/20110323/NEWS01/703229912/Hwy–160-crash-kills-3
A tragedy that hits close to home … Please offer your prayers for these families. I’ve been thinking about this all day, and I finally decided to share some of the grief I feel about this wreck and these people I don’t even know. Sometimes, no matter how careful you are, terrible things happen. Please be careful on all your journeys.
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McCullough Peaks approves PZP
12 03 2011http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_01e28808-7d9f-518e-8436-83f6f2d58137.html?mode=story
By Martin Kidston
Billings Gazette
CODY — The Bureau of Land Management will begin darting wild mares in the McCullough Peaks with a contraceptive later this month in a move that the agency says will cost less than past roundups and help stabilize the herd’s population.
Officials with the BLM’s Cody Field Office will dart mares over the age of 1 with the fertility control drug porcine zona pellucida, or PZP, in hopes of establishing a viable population of 70 to 140 wild hores.
Tricia Hatle, the BLM’s wild horse specialist in Cody, said Monday that two trained wildlife darters will administer the vaccine using capture guns. The effort is expected to run through 2015.
“One person will dart the mare, and the other person will be the observer,” she said. “We’ll recover the dart so we know if the vaccine was injected. It’s administered in the hip, in the muscle. It’s about 1 cc, a very small amount of liquid.”
Hatle said targeted mares will receive .5 cc of PZP. The drug would be mixed with .5 cc of an emulsifier known as Freund’s Modified Adjuvant.
Hatle said the vaccine works by blocking sperm from penetrating the mare’s egg. The PZP will be shipped to Cody by the Science and Conservation Center at ZooMontana in Billings, Mont.
In past years, Hatle said, management of wild horses in the McCullough Peaks has largely relied upon gathers and removals to control the population.
But those efforts have been costly. In 2004, when 362 horses were removed from the McCullough Peaks management area, the cost reached $135,000. In 2009, when 94 horses were removed, the cost exceeded $102,000.
“Our goal is to keep the herd at 140 or below,” Hatle said. “As of February, we were at 124 adults, and we’ve had one foal born so far.”
Hatle said the wild horses in the McCullough Peaks generally live 25 to 30 years — a little longer than their wild counterparts roaming Montana’s Pryor Mountains.
As the mares mature, she said, they’ll be permitted to foal. The newborns will ultimately replace older horses that die off.
“What you want to balance out is having foals born in proportion to horses that die of old age, so your population stays at a balanced level,” Hatle said. “You do this by allowing the mares to foal between 3 and 7 years of age.”
Mares that reach the foaling age will no longer be treated with PZP, she said. It may take one or two years after vaccination before the drug wears off.
“This allows the mare to mature fully before they foal,” Hatle said. “It’s easier to let them have a foal at 3 to 6 years. Right now, I have mares foaling at two years.”
Sarah Beckwith, public affairs officer for the BLM’s Wind River/Bighorn Basin District, said the new contraceptive program will cost less than past roundups.
She said Friends of A Legacy-McCullough Peaks Mustangs will pay for the PZP and assist in the field. The only cost associated with the program, she said, is Hatle’s time administering the vaccine.
“FOAL will be donating its time and paying for the PZP, and (Hatle) is doing this within her workday, so there’s no extra cost,” Beckwith said. “It’ll be much cheaper than the roundups.”
Members of FOAL couldn’t be reached Monday for comment, but Beckwith lauded the group for its efforts in addressing the herd’s long-term care.
“It’s such a helpful and wonderful partnership we have there with them,” Beckwith said. “Their goal is the same as ours — to reduce the need of those roundups. With this program, that’s what we’re aiming to do.
Contact Martin Kidston at 307-527-7250 or mkidston@billingsgazette.com
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Random happiness
23 02 2011Life got in the way of me posting yesterday (though I started one), so I didn’t quite make good on my promise to post every day for a week. The snow-weather that prevented weekend visits has given way to warm and wet (melting) weather now, so a visit to the basin this week may not be in my cards. The good news is I have a lot more photos from last week’s visit!
Here are some random images from the day that don’t necessarily fit into a “category” … they just are as they are.
Tenaz checks out some tasty morsel mama Piedra seems to have found.
Kestrel protested mildly, but Winona finally got her way.
Comanche – Kestrel and Winona were just up the hill to the right.
What a … stud! 🙂 Isn’t he just wonderfully handsome?
Scenery interlude: All the near foreground is within Spring Creek Basin. The La Sal Mountains in the background are in Utah.
What caught my eye was that through-the-clouds spotlight on the mountains. A long lens is essential for photographing wildlife, and it’s also perfect for isolating parts of landscapes. The first two “layers” in the foreground are in Spring Creek Basin – the hills in front and the hills rising up behind. Then the next couple of layers are outside the basin, in Disappointment Valley. And the mountains beyond.
The entire foreground here is Spring Creek Basin.
Layers and layers of beauty
Fierro catches a snack surrounded by family – Sable just out of sight to the right.
More coming …
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Categories : Comanche, Ember, Fierro, Hannah, Hook, Kestrel, La Sal Mountains, Piedra, Pinon, Tenaz, Uncategorized, Winona
This just in
19 02 2011It’s thundering – and RAINING – in Durango! I think I’m in the twilight zone … Isn’t this Colorado? Isn’t it February?
From weather.com at 2:45 p.m. Saturday:
The basin is northeast of Dove Creek, almost a straight shot south of Naturita. That line is pretty prominent to be Disappointment Creek, but it seems to mimic the flow of the creek (as opposed to the bigger Dolores River) … but it’s weird that Egnar, of all places, is on the map, and the town of Dolores is not. If it is Disappointment Creek, see the bend where it goes from NW-SE to basically E-W? Northish of that bend is the basin (if that is, indeed, Disappointment Creek).
Thanks to all you dancers … Chris … I know how much you needed a visit … Maybe it will turn to snow and you’ll get in after all! Here’s hoping!
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The voice of reason
17 02 2011Sometimes I hear a voice. Sometimes I listen to it … sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I worry it’s not the voice of intuition but the voice I want to hear and claim it’s intuition.
While that may or may not make sense … today, I heard that voice, and today I listened.
And today was a 180 from yesterday.
Teaser:
This was taken literally moments before the sun disappeared, just a stone’s throw from where the elk were bedded down at the base of Filly Peak yesterday (yes, sunshine – so much for the forecast).
Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous day, as gorgeous today as yesterday was grey.
I’m thankful for that voice … I’m thankful for listening … I’m thankful for the ponies that shared part of their gorgeous day with me!
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Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 