Pryor Wild

I spent the 4th out on the range, starting in the Burnt Timber area. The first horses to be seen were Jackson’s family. However, his three year old grulla filly wasn’t there. The two year old black filly was just down the hill.

Using a spotting scope, I scanned Sykes Ridge. I saw Mescalero, and I saw a new foal with his mare Dove. From that distance, I can’t get a lot of detail in my pictures, but at least I have a picture to show that foal exists.

The foal looks to be a buckskin, which is pretty exciting. This is also Dove’s first foal, and so this is also exciting.

Scanning more, I discovered a new foal with Morning Star’s three year old filly. This is likely Prince’s biologic offspring, though.

This foal looked to be a dun with a big blaze. The mother, Feldspar, also has a big blaze just like her father Starman.

Heading back down, Starman’s family had popped out.

Prince popped out of the trees and chased them away, and then his family came out.

There was another missing yearling filly from this family, and so that raises some interesting questions about having two yearlings disappear in the same area in a similar amount of time.

I headed out to Bighorn Canyon after this to see what was going on out there. On the way, I was able to get some nice pictures of a porcupine in a tree.

In the Canyon, there were 11 bighorn sheep rams and about the same number of ewes out on Mustang Flats.

Seattle’s family was nearby, and I was able to finally determine that the black foal is a colt.

I also got to see Cascade’s new foal. She was still a little touchy on the back legs, but she was getting around a little better.

I made a quick trip up Burnt Timber on the evening of the 30th. I first saw Santa Fe’s family on the way up.

However, I saw that the upcoming yearling filly Halle was not with them. I walked all around the area, but she just wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

During the evening, I also saw Jackson and Tecumseh’s families further up.

I spent a pretty good amount of time walking around Sykes Ridge on the 19th. The first horses I found while hiking were Admiral’s family. Still no new foal, but it was still nice to see them. Admiral grazed down low while the filly and her mother grazed on a hillslope.

As I walked back from them, I saw that the bachelor Starbuck had wandered into the area too. (As a point of interest, Starbuck is the father of the above dun mare with Admiral.)

As I continued up, I spotted Bristol and his filly out a way. I decided to walk out to them as it’d been a while since I’d seen them up close. I was a little curious if the filly was showing any signs of pregnancy.

Bristol looks the same as usual, and he lives in an area that no other horses do. He may not be too strong, but I think he is smart enough to know where he has the best chance of keeping his filly.

I don’t think the filly really looks pregnant, and she is still a little young. I have heard of cases in the wild where horses have foaled at her age (2 years).

I don’t often mention them here, but I really do see a lot of deer on my trips. I estimate I see anywhere from 15 to 30 on each trip to the Pryors, depending on where I am going. I usually see quite a few as I head up Sykes. These are mule deer. Only once have I ever seen a white tail on the range, and she was just barely in it. These deer were walking around in the mountain mahogany, and they were eating it.

Bighorn sheep also eat the mahogany, but I didn’t see any around this day. I did see plenty of places they had been in recently further up, though.

Corona’s family was just on the other side of the hill from the deer. It was just the second time I’d seen this 2008 foal.

My goal for the day was to get as high onto Sykes as I could, at least to the Sykes catchment area. I did make it there, but I didn’t stay long as there was a storm moving in. The only horse I saw close on Sykes was the bachelor Flint (Blue Moon). I also saw Morning Star and Coronado’s families from a distance.

We headed back before the storm hit. On the way down, I took this picture: (You can click it for a larger version.)

This is what Mustang Flats looks like from above. I’ve posted some pictures before showing horses on the face of the mountain headed up; this is near where they come up. You can also see Highway 37 and Bighorn Canyon in the picture. Those are the Bighorn Mountains in the background.

On April 6, we headed back up Burnt Timber. We first found Jackson’s family spread out on a hill slope. It’s great to see Jackson come into his own and put together such a nice young family. I came across a picture of Jackson as a foal this week, I will likely post it in an upcoming post.

Just up from them was Teton and his family. Teton is moving out of his black winter coat into his summer blue roan coat. The blue roan bachelor Fools Crow is also, but I’ve only seen pictures of him from visitors lucky enough to see him lately.

Phoenix was near Teton and the dun mare.

The upcoming three year old colt is also losing his winter coat and going into his summer roan coat. He doesn’t quite have the elegance of Teton’s coat change, though.

I am still very interested to see the final color of the 2007 colt. We’re still leaning into some variant of buckskin, such as sooty or roan.

We came out onto Cheyenne Flats and saw some horses there. Like seeing Two Boots’s family, this was a nice surprise as it was Tecumseh’s family.

Tecumseh was on a small rise above his family. He has a dark bay mare with her 2007 filly foal and a bay roan filly.

I was surprised to see the color the 2007 filly foal had turned out to be, but it does make sense. She is a really pretty dun with nice stripes. This is the probable coat color she would have given that her father was a dun and her mother a bay, but I just didn’t think she would look quite like this.

We went a little further up to see if we could spot any other horses. We saw a dun in the distance, and so we moved closer to identify it. I was hoping it would be Looking Glass, but it was the young dun filly that had been with White Cloud.

We did a thorough inspection of the area, and White Cloud was nowhere to be seen. Tecumseh was the nearest stallion to her, and he was a good half mile away. She seemed to be smelling Duke’s family, who was upwind but a few miles away to the west.

Right now, she is considered to be “in transit,” which means that she is just a female horse by herself. She will of course get taken in by another family soon, but it is an interesting thing to see female horses in the “bachelor” lifestyle. It will be interesting to see who she ends up with next.

I was able to get my first trip back up to see the horses on April 3, and we went up Burnt Timber. Lakota and Teton’s families were near the road while we could see Duke and Jackson’s families only with the spotting scope. We also saw Santa Fe’s family near the catchment, and so we walked out there to see how they were.

Santa Fe and Broken Bow were grazing and keeping watch while the grulla mare and the two fillies grazed nearby.

We left them and saw some other horses on the way back. Upon closer inspection, I was excited to see it was Two Boots with Looking Glass’ former duns.

Two Boots is looking pretty good as are the duns.

As we watched them, Santa Fe started moving his family out toward where Two Boots had his.

As Santa Fe got closer, he ran out to meet Two Boots.

Two Boots was awaiting him, and the two did a lot of posturing and noisemaking.

Santa Fe ran back from Two Boots to check on his family.

Two Boots’ family was content still, and Two Boots followed Santa Fe.

The two started up with the posturing again.

Things settled, the stallions returned to their families.

Two Boots snaked his family a little further down while Santa Fe watched.

It was great seeing Two Boots, and it was a lot of fun watching him interact with Santa Fe. These aren’t two of the strongest stallions, but they both have great families and their intelligence likely helps them with their family gathering skill.

Also, as an interesting note, Santa Fe has Two Boots’ former family; and Two Boots is Santa Fe’s father. Broken Bow was Two Boots’ former mare, and Demure is his daughter. The two fillies are Two Boots’ granddaughters. However, Santa Fe is not part of the “Broken Bow lineage.”

I spent a lot of time on the 16th looking through a spotting scope at the distant horses in the area where I’d previously seen Two Boots and Duke. I did see them, and they still had the members of Looking Glass’ family. I also saw Tecumseh in the area with his family; it had been a long time since I’d seen them though I’d heard from other people who had seen them later in the summer. Lakota, Baja, and White Cloud were also visible in the area.

As for looking at distant Sykes Ridge horses, I’ve also seen a number of them, like Morning Star, Bolder, Mescalero, and Littlefoot. In about the past month, I’ve actually seen most of of the families - All but about four or five families by my records. I’ve also seen a number of the bachelors.

The only wildlife photograph I really took that day was of some deer. I saw quite a number of them throughout these past days. I also saw some sheep tracks near the flats, though I never got to actually see the sheep.

While on the flats, I also saw something else, which I was not surprised to see. Someone had been on the flats in an SUV and had followed the offroad tracks of those four wheelers. This wouldn’t seem like such an honest mistake if this vehicle hadn’t followed the tracks right over the road closed barrier.

The season is bringing in lots of excitement - Interesting interchange, increasing recreation, and I would guess that there will be new foals appearing in the next few weeks. I’ll be gone for the next ten days as well. I apologize for the lack of updates I’ve had in March, but I will be happy to see what I can find when I return to share here.

Also - I’m not purposefully neglecting any unreplied-to comments. I will work on getting answers to them posted and/or sent to posters when I get back. Thanks!

Continuing my monitoring of the Burnt Timber horses on the 12th, I was happy to see Jackson again. This time Jackson had a new family member, even though it had just been a few days since I’d last seen him. Recall that when I saw Baja last, he didn’t have the 2005 filly with him. Well, Jackson has her now; but I’m not sure where she was between being with Baja and Jackson.

It was nice being able to see Brumby and the colt in better light as they are such pretty horses.

Flicka is usually hard to take a good photo of, but she was watching the 2005 filly closely - The family was seeming a little uneasy about her then; I think she had just joined them earlier that day. This is how I was able to get such good pictures of them being alert.

It looked like Jackson and the black 2006 filly had found a mud puddle to play in recently.

Doing some long distance scoping, I saw something interesting, which I tried to photograph here.

With a spotting scope, I could get a much better view of these horses. However, I can describe what is being seen here. The big group down below is Duke’s family. The few horses above them in the junipers are with Two Boots. Not every member is visible in this picture, but they did all show themselves eventually while I watched. So what’s so interesting about this? Well, it is neat to see Duke’s family. It is really interesting to see Two Boots with a family, though. I’d started to wonder if he was even still alive, and I wouldn’t have guessed he’d have a family. (As a side note, Two Boots is the father of Jackson.) Upon closer examination, Duke also had some new family members.

So where did these “extra” horses come from with Two Boots and Duke? These are members of Looking Glass’ family. Two Boots has the dun part of the family while Duke has the grulla part (minus the 2005 colt who is with the bachelor Doc lower down).  This raises a really big question - Where is Looking Glass? I did see a dun bachelor in the area, but it looked more like Sandman than Looking Glass. This is definitely something I will be interested to learn more about.

We headed back up on the 11th to see how things were on Burnt Timber. Lakota was down low, but Santa Fe was a distance up from them. Santa Fe was sleeping while his family rested nearby.

Gabrielle was resting below a rock while Broken Bow and the 2007 filly were grooming.

Demure was walking around grazing. She’s looking like she could be pregnant.

Back on the flats above, there were no horses to be seen right away. Looking further up the flats, though, I was happy to see Prince. I’ve been having some good luck seeing horses that I’d not seen in a while; I had last seen Prince’s family in November.

The mares are all looking good.

Prince and the 2007 filly foal were grazing together. I’ve always thought she was an interesting color. I’m now thinking she may be a dun roan, which makes sense given her parents’ colors.

Seeing all of these “new” horses lately has been exciting, and it just goes to show we are moving into a new season.