This handsome pronghorn buck and his ladies have been in and around Spring Creek Basin lately. I haven’t seen any fawns yet, but they’re either hidden out of sight, or they’re almost ready to make their entrance to the world!
Speedies
3 06 2025Comments : 15 Comments »
Categories : Pronghorn, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Wildlife
Had me at the eyes
27 05 2025
Sometimes, you never know who’s watching you when you think you’re all alone but the mustangs.
This red fox was a super cool sighting. I’ve seen them absolutely rarely, and I’m not sure I’ve seen (m)any in Spring Creek Basin before. I saw this handsome fellow or gal only because I caught some movement before s/he curled up in a ball to keep a bright eye on me as I was photographing some nearby mustangs.
I love foxes!
Comments : 10 Comments »
Categories : Colorado, Disappointment Valley, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Wildlife
Disappointment dinosaur
23 05 2025All the birds (OK, many) and all the flowers (again, many) and all the mustangs (really) may be my favorites, but when I tell you that collared lizards are my *favorite* lizards, they really are. While I adore horny toads (aka horned lizards), the bright turquoise collareds really are my very favorites of the reptile world (which might not be saying much as I’m really not a reptile kinda gal).
This handsome mister was sunbathing on a very pleasantly warm morning in Disappointment Valley. When I first encountered him, I had only my cell phone, so I returned with the big gun. He was much happier with me at a distance necessary with a long lens. I was happy that it allows me much more precise focusing on his amazing details.
We photographers like the eye-to-eye approach, but I had to rise a little to get that magnificent tail all in view.
After a bit, he thought he’d seek his shelter’s shade (I don’t think he’d been the only occupant; there was quite a lot of room beneath the overhang of his boulder, and I think something else may have done the initial excavation).
And then I appreciated how the shade allowed more details of and around his eye.
What a super handsome little dinosaur! So glad to see this bright fellow – first of the year for me. 🙂
Comments : 14 Comments »
Categories : Collared lizards, Colorado, Disappointment Valley, Wildlife
Book recommendations
15 05 2025After posting the information about Kathryn Wilder’s forthcoming (in November) book, The Last Cows, I thought I’d do a “pay it forward” post and recommend another couple of books that I’ve recently added to my library.
I’ve been lucky enough to know Barb Kiipper for many years during our mustang advocacy journeys. She’s the founder and director of Jicarilla Mustang Heritage Alliance, a group that advocates for the mustangs of the Carson National Forest’s Jicarilla Wild Horse Territory in northwestern New Mexico. She has poured heart, sweat, blood and tears into the challenge of working toward good management for that herd, getting many, many mustangs adopted to good homes along the way. I met Michele Bell only recently and have been inspired about her approach to taming and training mustangs from a variety of places (the Jicarilla, BLM-managed herds and Mesa Verde National Park).
Why A Mustang is part memoir of their journeys, part philosophy about working with mustangs and what these amazing horses have taught these women about themselves and mustangs, specifically and in general. It’s a bit of an addictive read (and if you’ve been involved with horses and/or mustangs as long as I have, absolutely fascinating with insights about behaviors and taming/training techniques), and I highly recommend it.
Also …
Long-time friend and amazing nature/wildlife photographer Claude Steelman visited the other day on his way to Spring Creek Basin, and he gifted me a copy of his newest book, Wild Journey: The Photography of Claude Steelman. I don’t see this book on his website, so I’m not sure of its availability. Claude had a gallery in Durango for a number of years and currently has downsized to a studio just above Main Avenue – so he can be out shooting more! This wonderful book is a sort of compendium of his travels and experiences across the West (and beyond) during his 40-plus years (!) as a photographer chasing natural light and wildness. Mostly images, only a little text; his photography truly speaks volumes.
As you would expect from the photographer who published Colorado’s Wild Horses, there’s a section in this book about mustangs, which includes images from Spring Creek Basin, including the above gorgeous scene. 🙂
Claude says people ask him when he’s going to retire, and I love his phrase at the end of the book that indicates that if he retired, he’d “just go take pictures, so why bother” retiring!? Find your passion, indeed!
I have been so fortunate along this journey to not only meet and spend time with “my” own mustangs but also many like-minded humans. The mustangs and these people keep me grounded on my own path.
Comments : 8 Comments »
Categories : Adoption, Advocacy, Claude Steelman, Colorado, Education, Jicarilla Wild Horse Territory, Mustangs, New Mexico, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Wildlife
Prince’s plume a’bloom
30 04 2025
Speaking of prince’s plume … !
Just between Sunday and Tuesday, the number of plants I saw probably doubled (which isn’t saying much as I didn’t see many on Sunday). But they’re definitely budding and blooming and raising their blossoms (I don’t really know the nomenclature for blooming or blossoming plants?), and the bees (and ants) are taking notice.
Proudest moment about the above pic? I think I actually have a catchlight in the bee’s eye. 🙂
The bee, by the way, was huge, probably at least the size of my middle finger’s middle knuckle.
Comments : 10 Comments »
Categories : Colorado, Disappointment Valley, Prince, Prince's plume, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Temple Butte, Wild flowers, Wildlife
Spring fuzzies
24 03 2025
A young bull elk and a cow elk check me out from right above Disappointment Creek, which still is not running yet this year. They still look awfully fuzzy don’t they? The temp was at least 67F in the valley yesterday. Spring is here.
Comments : 4 Comments »
Categories : Colorado, Disappointment Creek, Disappointment Valley, Elk, Wildlife
Buff and blendy
12 12 2024
Recently, shortly after I entered Spring Creek Basin, I saw a small group of mule deer in the very same vicinity as a large group of pronghorns. Because many of the pronghorns were napping in the lovely sunshine, I passed them, then walked back down a short distance to photograph them, hoping that was enough to not rouse them.
The deer were on their own mission and went over the edge of the hill and out of sight before I could get them all in the same frame, but the pronghorns were slow to worry (usually, they’re super wary).
Eventually they got up and started to follow the direction of the deer. I was happy to see how many fawns there appeared to be. Even for the fastest land mammals in North America, survival of the youngest is not assured. (They are not hunted in this part of Colorado; there simply aren’t enough of them. I called this a “big group,” but there were only about 15. I think there may be no more than around 25, maybe 30 (??), in the whole valley.)
Their famous speed wasn’t on display as they ambled (if a pronghorn can ever be said to amble!) off the hill following the deer. It was cool to see them, and the deer, enjoying a lovely, sunshiney day in the basin, as I was!
Comments : 10 Comments »
Categories : Disappointment Valley, Pronghorn, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Wildlife
Lucky dears
9 12 2024
Fortunately, there were a few lucky deer after this anxiety-ridden last set of hunting seasons. And now that the two-legged predators seem to have (?) left, they’re much more visible, courting their dear does.
Isn’t he a handsome fellow?
(Again, we don’t have nearly that much snow in the area anymore.)
Comments : 13 Comments »
Categories : Mule deer, Wildlife
Prongs on the prowl
7 09 2024
A few evenings ago in Spring Creek Basin, I was just sitting out in the grass, surrounded by a few bands of mustangs when … this lone pronghorn buck showed up, sashaying through the group like no big deal (and apparently it wasn’t, for either him or for them).
He didn’t seem to realize I was there at first, hanging out with the wildies as I was, just a lump in the grass. I think it was the clicking of my camera’s shutter that alerted him. He’s at a slow lope (if a pronghorn can be said to do anything as mundane as a *slow lope*!) in the pic above, but I think that was because he was between bands of mustangs at that point – and between me and bands of mustangs. When he first appeared to notice me, he just veered his course in that direction, still walking.
He ended up passing another band out in that direction and, as far as I know, went out around and beyond the western shoulder of Filly Peak.
Seeing these pix from that night, I was reminded that I’d seen a family of pronghorns a few nights (maybe a week) before THAT. Pronghorn bucks, like elk bulls and mule deer bucks, don’t stay with females of their species year-round – UNlike mustang stallions, who, of course, do. So I hesitate to call this little grouping a “family,” though it was clearly made up of a few does, a fawn and one determined buck (he was determined that they should go on, through/below/past the bands I was (again) watching, and the shes of the group were just as determined that they were not, under any circumstances, going past the little rock outcropping upon which perched the weird lump that was oddly clicking).
This was just after I’d become aware of them, after I’d sat down to watch a couple of bachelors who were grazing their way toward me. The doe at left is looking back at one of the stallions.
Ah, now the jig is up; they’ve heard my clicking and are aware of my presence. They didn’t come any closer (which was fine).
Riddle me this: Pronghorns are the fastest North American land mammal. But which are faster: does or bucks? The buck did manage to “corral” his girls (they also went in at least three different directions – at the same time), but THEY made the decision on where they were going and when. They finally moved in basically the direction he wanted them to go, but farther down the hill from below the road.
I can’t say for sure, but I think the horses found them as fascinating as I did.
Comments : 6 Comments »
Categories : Pronghorn, Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, Spring Creek Basin mustangs, Wildlife
Close encounter of the sssslithery kind
23 08 2024Warning: If snakes give you the heebie jeebies, scroll no more and wait for tomorrow’s post.
Warning No. 2: Seriously.
Warning No. 3: I’m really not kidding.
Are you still reading?
(Hopefully this is enough lines of text to take up space on most phones or tablets or computer screens?)
You were warned.
After a summer of fastidiously watching where I step and kneel and sit and seeing most snakes alive or dead on the area roads (as opposed to where I’m out hiking), this little fellow/a surprised me as I did a turn-and-step move – before watching where my step would land after I turned.
It did NOT rattle; I caught just the motion of the slither and performed one of my patented levitation-slash-backward-step (it may have involved a bit of a jump) moves. I think we surprised each other.
It quickly slithered into a nearby shadscale (one of our salt-desert shrubs) and loosely coiled around the inner stem with its head held up through a natural “window” in the vegetation – all the better through which to keep tabs on me … and allow me to photograph it from a lovely-safe distance (I do have a very long lens, after all).
Taken from a bit higher perspective, this (though soft as the focus was on that distinctive head) shows a bit of the pattern on its … back? Dorsal aspect, I suppose. 🙂 Another scaly critter with dorsal spots sted stripes!
And young. While it seemed healthy (read: it had some width/circumference to its body/length), it had only two tiny little rattles/buttons at the tip of its tail.
I went off in pursuit of other (safer) photographable things, and when I returned, snakey was gone. (I don’t think that made me any more relieved, not knowing where it went!?)
I’ve never known exactly what species of rattlesnakes we have here in Southwest Colorado. Ours are fairly short – no more than a couple of feet, generally (the ones I’ve seen) – even the ones with multiple rattles/buttons. While the one pictured above seemed “normal” in length, comparatively speaking, it had just a couple of little buttons (and unfortunately, I was too busy in my levitation mode to get pix of that end before it cozied up under the shadscale). This University of Colorado website has a good photographic listing of the state’s snakes, and what we apparently have are “midget faded rattlesnakes” – second-to-last slide.
This Colorado Parks and Wildlife site gives a lot more information about midget faded rattlesnakes – without the pix if you do, indeed, get the heebies just from looking at the critters (and if you do, how are you still reading this post?!). Having learned to levitate fairly late in life, I will say that while I appreciate their role in the ecosystem and always leave them alone – taking only pix and as quickly as I can so I can leave them to their snakey pursuits – they give yours truly the heebie big jeebies, too!
Comments : 16 Comments »
Categories : Colorado, Disappointment Valley, Rattlesnake, Wildlife
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 