You don’t survive in the wild as long as Houdini has without learning the art of where to get the best swish for the buck. In her case, bestie Alegre has the tail that’s best for the job of keeping flies away. I’ve seen Houdini numerous times following Alegre with her head positioned to take advantage of Alegre’s swishing. And it’s always Alegre. These ladies have been together for a very long time.
Because grey is the most dominant color among Spring Creek Basin’s mustangs (thanks to a couple of prolific grey stallions introduced with a pinto stallion in the 1990s), probably the advice I give most to visitors is to “look for the white dots – or spots.”
While I was with another couple of bands in an area of the basin I call wildcat valley, I spotted a white dot and a black dot, joined soon by another white dot and a red dot. I might not have seen the others if I hadn’t seen that first itty bitty white spot highlighted by sunshine against shadow. In the farthest background looms the base of McKenna Peak.
Thinking about that handsome neighbor next door … 🙂
I’m not really sure what it is about this scene that I like so much. The band had been napping with some other bands, and at some unknown-to-this-human signal, grazing among all the horses recommenced. While the other horses grazed where they’d been napping, Buckeye’s mares decided to forage farther afield. Aiyanna was leading at this point, and she’s out of the frame to the right, up the hill.
Buckeye followed along, of course (the tree at left is the same tree at right in the pic of Dundee and Rowan).
I was fairly far away, but something about the background and smoky, diffused light caught my attention. (Don’t worry, the smoke wasn’t from local fires, and after a little more recent rain, our sky is much brighter again.) …
Just something a bit different.
That mustang! That light! That place they call home!
When I first walked out to Corazon’s band, I had visions of getting the whole band in a frame that included McKenna Peak and Temple Butte and some amazing clouds left by a passing storm (that remained southeast of us and didn’t pass over us at all). … In reality, I got butts and faces hidden in grass. 🙂 Which isn’t a terrible thing when there’s grass to be grazed!
It was very accommodating of Corazon to eventually give me a look before our area was draped in the shadow of the western rimrock edge of the basin. … And then they went off to evening water, and it was another day to mark as divine.
Immediately after a brief apparent difference of opinion, Skywalker seems to look for his friend Sancho’s forgiveness. What a sweetheart.
A few bands were napping in fairly close proximity to each other a few days ago in the basin, so I took advantages of faces up (not hidden-in-grass grazing) to take some pix of handsome Buckeye and his lovelies, Dundee, Aiyanna and Rowan. They’ve been together almost a full year now (remember, Flash had them for about the first week and a half), and they seem pretty devoted to each other. Things change, of course, but seeing these four together lifts my spirits in a place where my spirits are always high.
Yes, Virginia, it really is that gorgeous.
Who needs more peace? (Spoiler: That’s a trick question, of course. :))
Aspen moseys on ahead of the band. I love that green on the hills and ridges in the background. Some in the nearer background (there’s a big arroyo in the lower part/mid-ground of the pic) is greasewood and shadscale and four-wing saltbush (salt desert shrubs), but much of the green in the background is grass: grama, galleta, sand dropseed, alkali sacatone, etc. It’s a bountiful summer (thank goodness for even our sporadic monsoon rains!).
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 