We made the big hike up Lower Sykes Ridge again on the 13th. While walking in the snow along the rim of a canyon, we came upon Bristol; and he had Greta back.
Just to the northwest of them were the Dryhead bachelors.
Starbuck wasn’t with them then, and I didn’t see him that day. However, this isn’t atypical behavior for him to drift to and from bachelors. In fact, the first time I ever saw Starbuck, he was with the bachelor pair of Admiral and Cibeque. When I went out the next day, he was gone from them already.
The bachelors were moving up the hill, and so we just sat and waited for them to pass by so that we wouldn’t change their travel plans. They remained alert, but it took them a little while to move past as they stopped to graze and eat a little snow on the way.
I’ve said it before, but getting to watch these three together is a pretty special treat on the range. Many past visitors have very likely seen the behavior of bachelor groups before, likely on the mountain. However, these three are the only static bachelor group that isn’t just made up of a pair of bachelors due to the last roundup which effectively eliminated the “black bachelor” group that had been on the mountain. Thus, among many other reasons, these three are very special horses in the social fabric of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horses.
The bachelors ended up moving up another hill. Walking around the hill, I got a nice glimpse of Fools Crow as he looked over the edge as we walked past.