Pryor Wild

Yesterday the wild horse and burro expert for the area called to tell that he was going to try and get Phoenix back with her family today (August 30, 2007). This morning we headed up to see her return. (Click here for the post showing her removal.)

When we arrived on the mountain, we saw Teton and the rest of her family resting near the pond.

A little while later, Stiles came out of the forest and challenged Teton a little.

This caused Teton to move the family up a little higher. Since the family looked content at this new place, we went ahead to see if we could find any other horses before Phoenix and the foal arrived. It isn’t so unexpected that we did not see any other horses besides Teton’s family as the horses have moved to some remote areas lately. It is very lucky that Teton’s family happened to be near the road on the day Phoenix and the foal were to return. Again, the BLM’s plan had always been to release them very close to Teton’s family when there wasn’t any other families around that could complicate the return. This would allow for the most stable of situations. The situation could not have been much more stable today.

We met up with the BLM horse and burro expert with Phoenix and the foal, and followed him in. It was about 12:30 by the time we reached the hillside with her family. As the trailer was backed just off the road, Teton and his family became alert and watched.

As soon as the trailer was positioned below the family, Phoenix and the foal were released. They ran away from the trailer, smelling the air.

As they got closer to Teton, they started to call out to him.

Teton and the dun mare quickly ran out to her, and the two year old colt was close behind.

As the family ran out to Phoenix, Stiles ran up to challenge Teton again. The two sparred a little before Stiles moved away.

After this, the family was able to be together and graze for a short while.

Phoenix and the foal seemed to quickly readjust to life back on the mountain.

After grazing for a little while, they all went down to water. Phoenix has resumed her role as lead mare, and she led them down with the dun mare and her foal right behind. Teton and the two year old colt took up the rear.

They drank and played in the water for a few minutes.

After that, Phoenix led the family out into the woods north of the pond, and Stiles was close behind.

It was about twenty minutes from the time Phoenix was released to the time the family moved into the forest. I was taking most of my photographs from adjacent forestland, so I didn’t interrupt the family. Thus, it was difficult to get real clear photographs of her wound. Here are a couple cropped down shots of it from when she was running out of the trailer.

As I have mentioned, finding the mountain horses is a lot harder now than it was just a few weeks ago. The only other family I ended up seeing was that of Coronado (Red Raven) as they came to drink at the pond.

I hope to get back up there soon to do some exploring and see how the other horses are doing.

Tonight I finally was able to find Sam and his dun mare that we call Hightail. It is embarrassing - I am sure they were always in this area, but I didn’t really want to go exploring in there until I knew they were there for sure. Again, I wanted to find the dun mare because I had heard from others that she has a “hole” on the side of her back left hip.

After hiking through the vegetation, and crossing Crooked Creek, my dad and I caught up to them. As you can see, Hightail has excellent primitive markings (the stripes on her legs and back).

The small puncture wound can be seen on her hip, but it seems to be healing quite well. Here are a couple of cropped down closeups of it.

I will continue to post updated pictures of her when I can.

Also, it looks as if her stallion, Sam, had a big fight sometime this season. The white stripe on his back and the white area in front of his back right leg are scars.

As a side note, Crooked Creek provides habitat for other animals besides the Pryor horses. The constant source of water and dense vegetation also allows animals like this doe and fawn to live there.

Viewing the Pryor horses in Bighorn Canyon can often be fairly easy as the horses are often within 100 yards or so of the highway. However, there are times when it may seem like there just aren’t any horses where you would expect them, especially on Mustang Flats. In all my trips to the flats, there have only been a couple when I can honestly admit that there were no horses to be seen. Most of the times, however, it just takes some serious watching. Tonight was one of these times.

Though the horses are most often on the flats of Mustang Flats, they can be about anywhere in view from the highway. For example, tonight while scanning the mountainside, I ended up seeing four horses that are among the more elusive of the Dryhead horses: Corona and his family and the old bachelor stallion Pepy.

This is the area that I spotted them in.

Clicking here, you will be able to see where on the mountainside these horses were.

Zooming in further to Corona’s family, you can make them out moving up a trail.

Here you can see where Corona, his mare, and his filly foal from this year are.

A closeup of Pepy can be seen here, and his location in that picture can be seen here.

Mustang Flats is actually a pretty large area, and so it is worth scanning it all too in order to find horses. This especially holds true for the area near the foot of the mountain. Tonight, Seattle and his family were there.

Clicking here will help you to see the area that Seattle’s family was in.

The black stallion Seattle is the easiest to spot in this photograph.

The area the family was in is highlighted here. His grulla family is almost impossible to see around Seattle, but I did see them to verify it was that family.

If you are planning a trip out to see the Pryor horses, I’d definitely recommend bringing a good set of binoculars so you can do this kind of searching. It’s really fun to be scanning along and then see horses in your view. To make identification at this distance possible, I have also put together a guide that makes it easier. Until I can get a version of it uploaded to this blog, feel free to contact the Pryor Mountain Wild Mustang Center or stop on in for a printed version of it.

For the past few days I have been going to Bighorn Canyon a lot to try and find a particular mare. A couple visitors to the mustang center have told me she has an injury, and I would like to see it myself. I still haven’t had any luck, but a visitor this morning saw her; and so I hope she is still there this afternoon. These trips out there haven’t been a waste at all, though, as the horses out there are always a pleasure to see.

On the evening of August 24, 2007, I saw Blizzard and his mare heading to water. Blizzard is Durango’s son; he is six years old this summer.

Blizzard’s grulla roan mare is the mother of the blue roan two year old bachelor who is with the other Dryhead bachelors.

The bachelors were nearby as these two went to water.

On the morning of August 25, 2007, it was a little chilly in the canyon; and the horses were up pretty high. I did see a golden eagle on the way out, though.

Durango’s family was resting on the morning of August 26, 2007. The colt was laying in some grass while the rest of his family stood together above him.

Just down the road from them, the bachelors were grazing together.

Seattle’s family was also nearby. One of his mares, her two year old colt, her new colt foal, and the filly foal from the family were together.

The lead mare stood on the hill watching them.

Seattle was trying to get some sleep; his other mare can be seen above him in the junipers.

A few minutes later, the family seemed to decide they would go pester Seattle. The foals nuzzled and bit him while the mares stood over him.

After a few minutes, they stopped bothering Seattle and ended up resting with him.

On the evening August 27, 2007, I still could not find that mare. I ended up seeing Durango and his family as they went to water. I also saw a number of deer, I think I ended up seeing about 8 of them.

On my way out, Admiral’s family was near Crooked Creek Bay. Initially the three were resting.

Soon after, though, they moved into a nearby field of sunflowers.

Admiral’s mare and her yearling were side by side, and their great stripes were very visible then. The yearling looks like a miniature version of her mom. This mare is also the mother of the bay bachelor with the tomahawk shaped blaze.

Hopefully I’ll be able to find the mare with the injury soon, I’ll be sure to write about anything I find with her.

It’s hard to believe it’s been a week since I was on the mountain. It’s actually a little difficult to find the mountain horses now; they have moved to some of the more remote parts of the area. This isn’t a bad thing; it’s fun to think about what unknown things they could be doing. Because of this, I don’t have too much to write about.

On August 21, 2007, I was on the mountain with a great group of people; and we were lucky in seeing some great horses. We did have to really work to find them, though. One interesting thing we saw was that the young stallion Blue Moon (also called Flint) had a dun filly. The filly is a yearling from Trigger’s family. When I first saw them I was confused about which stallion I was seeing. After getting a full view of Blue Moon, though, I was able to figure out who I was looking at. Shortly after that, I ran into the BLM person who monitors the horses; and she told me who the filly was.

When I first saw them, they were in a small meadow. Blue Moon was very alert while the filly slept.

A few hours later, I encountered the two again a couple miles away walking through the forest.

By the next day, the filly was no longer with him. I haven’t heard what happened to her, but I assume she went back to her parents.

Later on the 21st, we did actually see the filly’s family. Again, her father is Trigger.

This year, Trigger has two new colt foals.

During the day, we also saw the families of Looking Glass, Coronado (Red Raven), Duke, Bolder, Mescalero, and Starman.

To find the horses now, my general strategy is to walk around and look for horses or the sign of their recent presence. More often than not, this strategy doesn’t help me to find the horses; it helps me to determine where they aren’t at. From this, it is often possible to make a pretty good guess as to where they are. At the end of the day, I did one last hike to try and find horses in the forest near one of their watering areas. I only found a little recent sign, and I assume that belonged to Blue Moon and the filly as I found them a short distance from it. The only other wildlife I ended up seeing on that hike was a buck deer. I turned a corner in the forest, and we both surprised each other. He stood there watching me while I stood there taking his picture. Because of the odd lighting in forests at sunset, the resulting photographs look a little surreal.

I hope to get up to the mountain again this weekend, and I hope to return with more stories.

On the evening of August 20, 2007, I made a trip to Bighorn Canyon to see the horses. Some fellow horse photographers told me that they had seen a group of bachelors up the road. We headed up there, and there were indeed some bachelors.

A big surprise of finding these four together was that they had a new addition. Oftentimes the group can be seen with the right horses in the below photograph (the grulla, red dun sabino, and blue roan) as well as an older black stallion. The bachelors aren’t always together; sometimes one or two will go there own way for a while before meeting back up with the rest.

The red bay horse on the left has been a bachelor since early in the year, but he didn’t really have any idea that these other bachelors were together. He will certainly have many adventures with them, so long as he stays with them.

One of these bachelors has been in the blog before - Medicine Bow is the red dun sabino who had Durango’s family for a short time in July.

Recall that Medicine Bow has a great story of survival, with him surviving the early loss of his mother as well as a fight with a mountain lion. Like him and every other horse, each of these bachelors has a story. I find the stories of these four to really stand out, though.

The grulla and blue roan are two years old this summer. They became bachelors before their first birthdays. They aren’t related by blood, but they have been great friends. The stories of the events prior to and after them leaving their families are too complex to discuss in this short article, but they are indeed very interesting and could perhaps be the subjects of future articles as I have them documented through my photos.

The new addition to these boys is a fairly well known horse. He is the only Pryor horse born in 2004 that is still alive. There is a lot of speculation as to what happened to the other members of his cohort, but it is known that there was heavy mountain lion predation that year. However, it was likely not predation that exclusively caused the foal deaths.

This horse is hard to mistake. He has a rich red bay color, some white on his back right leg, and a unique “tomahawk” shaped blaze on his face. He looked a little humorous this night as he had a piece of grass stuck in his forelock.

It will be a lot of fun to see if the 2004 bachelor continues to roam with these boys. They roam far and wide, and so it is very hard to predict where you will see them next. This makes it a pleasant surprise to find them. This again especially held true that night because of the new addition to the group.

My apologies for being so late on this update; going up to see the horses has kept me busy these past few days. I’ll be doing some posts on things I saw then soon.

I went to see Phoenix and her foal on Saturday (August 18, 2007). The BLM is taking very good care of the two. They seemed very content, and Phoenix is healing quite well.

From talking to BLM staff, I understand that the wound seems to be fairly superficial. They didn’t detect any infection, and the wound isn’t really sensitive to touch. The BLM will continue to treat and monitor the wound so that they can better understand what did or did not cause this wound to form.

I did see Phoenix’s family the following day (August 19, 2007); they are all still together. They were on the Burnt Timber road a short distance down from the Little Ice Cave turnoff.

As always, Stiles continues to follow the family.

I will continue to post any updates concerning Phoenix.

I had a lot of fun in Bighorn Canyon yesterday; I helped a group to find and learn about the Pryor horses out there. We were able to see Admiral, Corona, and Seattle’s families. On the way back, we got to see a group of sheep. It was fun to see the lambs with them, and there was also a young ram there.

On the way down, we spotted Bristol and his filly near Crooked Creek Bay. Bristol is a pretty grulla stallion. He has a bad leg, though; and so it has been hard to predict how his life would play out. Pryor horses are tough, though, and last year he got this filly - I don’t even think she was a year old when he got her. He loves her; and he is often hard to find, likely because he has to stay away from other stallions who could easily overpower him. It was lucky to get some good photographs of the two.

Bristol’s bad leg is easily visible; it is the front right one.

The filly is looking great as she grows.

It will be interesting to see how this family ends up.