Pryor Wild

On the evening of the 17th, I headed out to Bighorn Canyon to see how Seattle’s mare was doing with her pregnancy. She’s just been looking pretty round the past couple times I’d been out, so I knew she was close. When I arrived out there and found them, she didn’t have a new foal. However, she was looking very round and ready to nurse.

Her daughter from last year was nearby in the sage.

Seattle and the 2005 colt Farallon were together nearby.

Seattle’s other mare and her 2007 colt were just up from them.

It was nice seeing the family at sunset, but I was thinking I’d be seeing an additional family member by then. I also  found Admiral to see how his pregnant mare is, and she hadn’t foaled then either.

We headed up Lower Sykes Ridge on he 14th to see which horses were visible. Starbuck was the first horse spotted; he was on a hillside eating some snow.

Further up there was a nice surprise, the Dryhead bachelors were out.

Fiero the grullo colt wasn’t visible, but I am pretty sure he was just on the other side of the hill. The boys were a little touchy, so I didn’t want to try and get around them to see.

It would have been nice to see Fiero too; but it was still great to see these pretty stallions, especially Fools Crow in his spring coat.

As we continued on from them, we spotted another group of horses up in a small valley. It was Merlin’s family, and I hadn’t seen them since February.

Merlin is still looking good with this new family of his.

The mare does not appear to be pregnant, and I also saw Merlin try to breed her. However, she does look healthy.

The upcoming yearling colt has a pretty vivid coat now. It will be interesting to see how it turns out as we move into the summer.

I think the most striking member of this family, and one of the most striking of the entire herd, is the filly with Merlin. She will be three this summer, and she is a very beautiful grulla with her great conformation, two tone mane, and nice stripes.

We didn’t see any other Lower Sykes horses on the way up the Sykes Ridge Road, but we did get to see some of the Sykes Ridge horses from a distance once we got higher.

On the 12th, I headed out to Bighorn Canyon with the goal of seeing how one of Seattle’s mares was doing with her pregnancy. Just before I entered the range, I saw two horses run across the road. I knew right away that it was Sam and Hightail, but I wasn’t sure why they were running. By the time I got up there, they were already quite a distance away.

I looked the other direction to see what had caused them to run, and I saw a dark bay horse up the way. I recognized him as Admiral. He was a good distance away, but I knew where to get a better look from up the highway.

Admiral was moving pretty fast back north when I saw him.

I was curious as to why Admiral had been so aggressive in getting Sam and Hightail out of wherever they had been. I wondered if perhaps Admiral’s mare had foaled and this caused him to be more touchy. There was also the possibility that Admiral simply did not want the others to be so close. Whatever the case, I decided to go see the whole family.

By the time I arrived, Admiral was laying down resting while the others grazed nearby.

There was no new foal, and so I guess Admiral just wanted to make sure no other horses were nearby then. I did end up going further in to see Seattle’s family, and there was no new foal there either.

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.

We headed up Lower Sykes Ridge on April 5. As we went up, we saw Corona’s family in a grassy area.

You probably notice here that today Corona’s family had an extra member - A new foal!

We believe this to be the first foal of 2008 born. It is a little filly that is dark bay in color and has a large star, a back right pastern, and a faint dorsal stripe.

The mare Waif was the first to foal last year, and so it wasn’t total chance for us to find this new foal. Corona and Waif’s 2007 foal is a foal no longer - She is now a yearling, and she is pretty big.

Halo has changed a bit since she was first seen as a long legged red bay with a large star. I am planning a post showing the 2007 foals as young horses along with photos of them now.

We went and looked in another area to see about any other horses. I was happy to see Admiral in there as it’d been a while since I’d seen his family. That is indeed a fence Admiral is behind, but he isn’t separated from his family. That is a boundary fence between the Park Service and BLM portions of the range, and there is a big open gate just about fifty feet down from where Admiral was.

The filly is looking great as she reaches her second year. She is looking like a little clone of her mother, with the large star and the great leg stripes.

The mare Seneca is looking like she could be close to having a new foal, so I am keeping an eye out for any new ones with them.

Foal season is definitely upon us, and there are a few other very pregnant mares out there that I am watching. So be expecting lots of new faces on the blog as we progress into the Spring.

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.