A little bit of a throwback, as the recent wind (for the last few days?!) was reminding me of the day the wind brought snow. No snow since then, but Seneca always looks beautiful waiting for it!
Looking south, that’s snow coming over the southern ridges of Disappointment Valley.
The horses of a band rarely get far enough away from each other to be out of sight, so you’ll rarely hear them whinnying for each other.
But it so happened the other day that while Madison and her band were grazing, about half the band meandered away from the other half in search of water, and they ended up not only fairly far away from each other but out of sight of each other. As it turned out, the bachelor with them was upset about the separation, so he stood between them, where *he* could see each group, and started whinnying.
Eventually, Temple seemed to realize that she and two others were cut off from the others, and she couldn’t see them!
After a few calls back and forth (I’d love to be able to translate, but I imagine the conversation went something like this: “Where are you?” “We’re here!” “I don’t see you!” “I don’t see you, either!” “Come here!” “You come here!”), Temple and her pals (which included the band stallion) joined their lieutenant and followed him to the rest of the band, where I later found them (after I visited with another nearby band), all together and content. 🙂
Switching gears – and hair for feathers – this morning, please enjoy this juvenile bald eagle that was hanging out in some cottonwood trees near (dry) Disappointment Creek.
S/he looks like s/he dipped her/his head in some of the seeps that are producing mud-water currently, but based on this illustration, I believe s/he’s a juvenile, about 4 years old.
There were no other birds around – eagles or otherwise. I was incredibly happy that the eagle was “sticky” and allowed me a few minutes to photograph him/her from my truck.
We don’t have a lot of bald eagles in Disappointment Valley anymore, though I’ve been seeing them all winter between Disappointment and Dry Creek Basin (on the way to Naturita and/or Norwood). (And I’ve kicked myself a million times for not having my camera those times … though it’s harder to stop in the middle of the highway than on lonely Disappointment Road!) A generation or so ago, there must have been many, as evidenced by the title of “Where Eagles Winter: History and Legend of the Disappointment Country” by Wilma Crisp Bankston, the late mother of an up-valley resident (whose brother and sister also still own land nearby).
While we have golden eagles year ’round in the Disappointment Country, bald eagles are mostly winter visitors. It’s always a treat to see any of these magnificent birds.
This was toward the end of the 15 or 20 minutes I spent with Buckeye’s band while it snowed. There’s a fair bit of snow cover on the ground – and on the horses!
I thought the horses would likely turn their butts to the strong wind that was sending the snow straight at them broadside, but they grazed around as though it wasn’t windy at all. I kept *my* back to the wind and the snow because I didn’t want the flakes hitting my lens inside the lens hood and making it even harder for the camera to find focus on the horses (as opposed to the flakes in the air)… but the tradeoff was that the snow was hitting the eye piece of the camera, which meant I couldn’t see anything but watery blobs! So I was trusting that my camera’s focus beeps indicated that it really was finding focus on the horses and just sort of guessing at composition. Amazingly, it did a great job at finding focus on the horses through the air that was THICK with fat flakes blowing crazily past us. The wind and snow started out of the southeast, and by the time I left the horses, it had shifted a bit and was coming more from straight east.
The horses were getting pretty coated in snow by the time I left them – maybe 15 or 20 minutes after the snow reached us? – and I didn’t think about it until I was brushing myself off for the trip home, but I also was covered in snow. Ha! It’s like not noticing the biting cold when I’m with the ponies … but only later. Their magical bubble encompasses me and blocks out any adverse conditions (heat or cold, snow or sharp sunshine). 🙂 I’m completely sure that my presence doesn’t act in the reverse, for *them* … but I wish it did!
Yesterday (of course) was a much different weather story in Spring Creek Basin: Sunshine and a high temp probably in the 40s. I didn’t venture into the basin’s interior but drove up alongside the southwest boundary to see the snow on the interior buttes and ridges and peaks and points. The contrast between snow there and still-brown ground down-valley was kinda crazy.
Above, Bia pauses her grazing while Dundee grazes in the background.
And the focus on Dundee beyond Bia. Part of Spring Creek canyon is still visible in the background, and the big-flake snow was just starting to stick. Not long after this, visibility dropped to just our own little circle of the world. The horses were never very bothered by either the wind or the snow blowing on the wind. They continued their grazing up the slight hill and across the road, at which point I took the road back to my buggy and headed for shelter. 🙂
From bright blue skies to white-out blizzard! Mother Nature actually came through for us yesterday afternoon. 🙂
I was in about the center of Spring Creek Basin, and the snow was coming from the eastish/southeastish for probably two hours, and I was despairing of it ever getting really to us (“us” being a form of the royal we, meaning the horses – and me in their midst). At precisely 2:45 (I turned my phone on to look), the leading snowflakes started flying with the wind that had started pushing maybe 15 or so minutes earlier.
Fairly quickly, the ground went from dry and brown to showing kabillions of snowflakes to having collected so many individual snowflakes – blown by the horizontal wind! – that the ground was white. The horses were collecting nearly as much snow on their coats and their manes and forelocks and faces as the ground. It doesn’t show super well on pale Rowan, but I should have some more snow-pony pix over the next couple of days (by Monday, we’re supposed to be enjoying 60-plus-degree temps!).
I was in a shallow little arroyo, focused on Rowan, when Buckeye photobombed us.
They’re quite a bit tighter and different from my usual offerings … but I quite like both images. Of course, I adore both mustangs, and that might have a bit to do with it. 🙂
It’s not often that I find the horses in wooded areas, so it’s always a treat to photograph them among the pinon and juniper. Corazon indulged me – maybe because he thought I couldn’t see him, or maybe he thought I was farther away than I was (behind trees and my very long lens). 🙂 Rarely does he pose so nicely for pix.
Corazon was named by me (he was one of the original herd members when I started documenting) for the *heart* in his pinto pattern on his left side. Naming him was fairly easy because of that. 🙂
While the rest of Colorado (yes, we’re actually in Colorado) is complaining about their snow and ice and vehicle wrecks (OK, that part is never good), we’re dusty damn dry here in the southwestern corner of the state. The pronghorns maybe don’t mind the lack of snow; it’s easier to move, and they don’t have to paw under the snow for their food. Only we who look ahead are scared about the coming summer. There’s nothing we can do about it, for better or worse, of course, but we humans love to complain about the future. 🙂
This is the same group of 14 pronghorns that have made themselves right at home in the western part of Spring Creek Basin lately. They were very calm about me moving slowly past them, stopping a few times to take some pix as I went.
That’s the north rim of Spring Creek canyon in the background. It’s hard to tell, but I’m on the south side, facing north.
The temp hit at least 51F yesterday. As desperate as we are for snow, I have to say that temp felt awfully nice after several days of frigid cold (which, yes, is normal in January in Colorado!).
Spring Creek Basin Mustangs 