Boy, do I have some catching up to do. Little did I know how challenging it would be to fulfill that photography/Facebook/blogging commitment!

Let me start with Sunday, May 16. We had been in Malheur NWR for a few days but I volunteered the first three days. My cousin and her husband decided to join us after ten years of harassing them. Since they are birders, that’s what we did first. Finally, I harassed her into going up to the South Steens herd with us. It’s not her cup of tea, but she was a good sport and went along.

We decided to take them to a place that horses can be pretty reliably seen, the “Hollywood” herd. I suppose they are called that because they are easily seen and desensitized by humans. They parade like movie stars and some of them look like movie stars!

We were not to be disappointed. After an initial run up the road, we came back down and saw about 40 horses in the Hollywood Meadow. Wowzer- even for us! We wasted no time getting there.

Of course, we carefully moved in. Marty and I have a system that works well for us. He moves in carefully with his big lens and when I am sure they are OK with him, I slowly move in behind him. Well, with this herd, you could walk right up to them and if you don’t, they might walk up to you.

Regardless, we did our usual routine, but in pairs. Marty with my cousin’s husband, Don, and my cousin, Karolyn, and I. No problem whatsoever.

The first thing we saw was an injured pinto off by himself. Before we knew it, two stallions took off after him. They came to a screeching halt, turned in circles around him, each smelling the stranger and the stranger smelling them. Then they seemed to accept him, turned and left. The single stallion never chose to join the larger group, though this scenario was repeated three different times over a three hour period of time.

The injury was to the stallion’s jaw, whether from another horse bite or a cougar, it was pretty significant. I would guess the injury was a couple of weeks old, with some good healing present. He appeared on the thin side, as if he hadn’t eaten well for a week or so. I can easily imagine it would have been painful to eat. He seemed to be doing alright now but he will certainly be disfigured.

So, forty horses! This group was clearly made up of at least three different bands, several that we have seen and photographed in the past. One of the groups was a bachelor band of five stallions that we had not seen before.

Anytime you mix multiple groups, lots of stallions and more than a few mares, you WILL see skirmishes. We weren’t disappointed. Two of the stallions gave us quite a lot of action. One stallion, a beautiful medicine hat that we have seen in the past was intent on protecting the entire group. He was the biggest instigator behind chasing the injured stallion.

We spent a lot of time with his family group, the largest part of the forty, last year. At that time, an older medicine hat was clearly the stallion in charge, although the youngster displayed a lot of aggressiveness toward other stallions but not the lead stallion.

Last year's lead stallion with another group's new leader

This year, the older horse had clearly abdicated his role, willingly or unwillingly. He was singularly uninteresting, choosing to eat and sleep the entire time we were there. Had he just turned the reins over for this year or had the younger stallion now yanked them from him?

The lead stallion of another group, either a silver dapple or dark liver chestnut paint (I am NOT an expert on horse colors), but a stunning horse nevertheless, stole the show. We have seen him in years past, rather a sedate horse then, but in his prime now. He chased everything that moved and a lot of things that didn’t.

We must have two hundred shots of him, not too many by any stretch with such a beautiful animal. He chased, bit, and herded; everything a stallion should do.

Another beautiful dun stallion with a dorsal stripe and striped legs was more concerned about his family and keeping them out of trouble. He was very attentive and protective, even watching over the foal in his group. This is a behavior we have seen with the stallions in this herd many times before.

The group of five stallions had a young horse and an older horse that were quite smitten with each other. Regardless of the action going on all around us, they just kept grooming each other. It got to be quite humorous to watch. Horses running, chasing and biting, and here these two stood in the background nibbling at each other.

Interestingly, the lead stallion of these five appeared to be a younger stallion and was next to the smallest in the group.

Big personality, I guess.

About an hour into the shoot, another photographer joined us. This didn’t faze the horses either, in fact, at one point they ran so close to him that he couldn’t shoot. We had a good chuckle out of that!

What were the other thirty-five horses doing while five or so were being rambunctious?

Eating, sleeping on their feet and laying down, grooming each other and largely ignoring the disruption. We can’t show that in the photos but is always an amusing part of watching the horses.

You would think everyone would be interested in the action, but that is far from true.

“Oh honey, it’s just the boys again.”

We saw three or four mares with GA branded on their flank. Apparently, this signifies mares that were given birth control at the round-up. It doesn’t affect the current pregnancy but there will be no pregnancy this year.

The South Steens horses were rounded-up in December 2009. We didn’t know what to expect when we went back. We were relieved to see horses we feared were missing and are hoping those that are missing are in the back country or adopted. I still haven’t been able to face the corrals.

There appears to be some mixing of horses after the round-up. Our favorite, a tricolor mare was clearly with another stallion last year, though likely this year’s foal was his. He was present with another mare. The older pinto stallions we had all seen before.

What was new was the addition of more solid color horses to this particular group. Lots of my Facebook fans have said they have seen many of these horses before in other areas. Now they are part of the Hollywood herd. Genetically and possibly socially, as well, a good thing. However, there was clearly family group disruption. Perhaps, that is also why there were so many skirmishes; horses still getting to know and trust each other.

Over the years, we have watched the presence of sabino and medicine hats (forgive me if my terminology is wrong but don’t hesitate to correct me) grow in this group. When we first started photographing the South Steens horses in about 2004, medicine hats were rare. Now they are quite common. I am told there can be genetic issues with this. I am also told that the injection of solid color horses will likely stabilize the negative genetic tendencies. Whether by BLM design or just a by-product of releasing horses in a different area than they were captured, this is likely a positive. Remember, I am a mere photographer, but I am passing on what I have heard from authorities that I trust.

After three hours we decided we were satiated. We left, my cousin and her husband going back to the refuge and us heading up the hill to see if we could see more horses. By the way, my cousin left solidly addicted to the wild horses.

We didn’t see any other horses and when we came back down a half an hour or so later, the horses had split into three distinct groups.

Our overall impression of the morning: Absolutely AWESOME. It will rank high on our list of favorite shoots for quite some time, I think.

We have been out to the wild horses two more times since last Sunday. I will blog about that next….

Be sure to check my website for a complete set of pics from this shoot.

Monday's Wild Horses

Sunday night on the way back to the trailer we saw three family groups along the road. One had ten horses, another seven and the third about fourteen. There was the most beautiful bay roan stallion with six mares and five foals in the largest group.

Two of these mares were beautifully colored. Thanks to my Facebook fans, I can put a name on those colors; an appaloosa with varnish is exactly what one of them looked like. (Little did I know that was a real color!)

The other mare was a chocolate silver dapple. I love just the name of that color! Interestingly, both of these horses were branded with a “N” on their neck. The BLM told us that they were Nevada State managed horses that had either been turned loose or had escaped.

Their horses are not released back into the wild.

We went for the larger group and the nicer colors. For some reason, this group was also very skittish. Try as we might, the light was just too poor and the horses too nervous, so we called it a day.

Monday morning we went back and the large group was in the same general area. The light was great but the industrial background they were in wasn’t.

The mares desperately wanted to go up the ridge, particularly the chocolate. She would head up the hill and the stallion would come running from wherever he was and push her back down.

The interesting thing is that he wouldn’t even appear to be paying any attention and the next thing we knew, he would be chasing them back. We watched him herd the stray mares back into the meadow three times before he let them go.

When he finally decided it was okay for them to go, he went around to those that lagged behind and got them on their feet and on their way, including this sweet little foal.

We thought we were done for the morning but no sooner did we round the corner than we saw a group of horses with five foals, all about the same size. This was the first group of horses we saw when we arrived here. They were literally in someone’s front yard!

While trying to respect the property owner’s privacy (we had tried to get permission the night before but no one was home) and still photograph the horses, the owners came home. They were delighted to see us and graciously assured us that we could come anytime we wanted. Thank you, Ruthie and Steve.

Here is a picture of Steve taking a picture of the foals in his front yard. The second one is a foal looking at the sign that says he’s under video surveillance. A moment later, he was chewing on the sign.

The five foals in this group were a joy to watch. They groomed each other, chased each other and bit each other. While this shot is not very sharp, it may be the only one we ever get of a foal stampede!

The horses drifted up and away so we drove up the highway to see if we could see any other groups. Indeed, there was another group of seven or eight horses, all bays, that we had not seen before on the other side of the highway. This group was very shy and ran away as soon as they saw us. Some are clearly not as desensitized as it appears.

We have made some general impressions of these horses in comparison to the ones we normally see in Southeastern Oregon, Montana and Idaho. The first and most surprising, is there very few stud piles to be seen around these horses. After five days of shooting in the Dayton/Virginia City area, we only saw two stud piles. Of course, that was the first thing we look for when we go out. We asked the BLM manager about this and he thought it was because the horses were new in the area. However, residents assured us that was not true.

Another difference is the stallion to mare ratio. All of the groups we have seen so far have one stallion, (only one group with a second young stallion) and the rest mares. On Wednesday, we saw an unusual group of three stallions, one mare and one foal. In the wilder country we usually see two or more stallions, even in small groups.

The last observation is the high number of foals. Usually there are at least a couple of mares in even a small group without a foal, but in these groups nearly all of the mares had foals. They are obviously very successful here. Perhaps, that’s why there are so many in Nevada?

We were totally skunked on Tuesday, trying to find the elusive 100 colored horses in the Pine Nut Mountains (a tip from the BLM horse person who had seen them about three weeks before- of course, in three weeks they could be in another state!).

Wednesday was our last full day in Dayton and we are now Winnemucca. I have a couple thousand images to review and edit, so there may be a "short" delay before I blog again.

We stopped at the BLM in Winnemucca this afternoon. It looks like there are no horses close to here. It's a minimum of 3 hours away. I think we will take the day off and head to Fields, Oregon on Sunday morning, spending two days with the burros and horses in that area.

Later.....

Sunday's wild horses

We headed out at Sunday morning at 5:30 a.m. looking for wild horses. Since we saw horses along the road to Virginia City last night, that's where we went. Remember, we're winging it until the BLM office opens tomorrow morning. Some kind souls have given us advice, but it's definitely trial and error.

Right by the 'Horse Crossing' sign on the highway to Virginia City we saw a dead horse. We had missed it last night but it looks like it had been there a couple of days.

We noticed people speeding by last night as we were photographing by the side of the road. Apparently, drivers don't pay much attention to the signs. Sad...


No horses all the way to Virginia City. When we came back down we still didn't see the horses from last night. We decided to head back into the hills we were on last night. We hadn't gone five minutes and saw seven horses up on a ridge. One stallion, five mares and a young foal.

The stallion was lame in the hind leg. Boy, less than 24 hours out and two casualties. His leg doesn't appear broken, likely just a bad sprain, but he was definitely hobbling.

Our experience with wild horses has been a mixed bag. Some are so shy you can't get out of the truck. These horses are obviously desensitized to humans as they paid us almost no mind at all. Mom was the most elusive but her foal was quite young. After a few minutes, even she didn't care that we were there.

We were able to walk up quite close. The morning sun was just right and we shot until we were satisfied. Ahhhhhh.......

We did observe some interesting behaviors. A young palomino mare was flirting quite openly with the stallion. Being a stallion, he was quite interested as well. But when he got a bit too personal she reacted appropriately for a young female and rebuffed him. We watched this several times, even seeing her back up to him like she was ready to breed. We were happy to see this did not occur, as she is much too young to breed.

We were fascinated with the young foal. It will be the only one in this small family group, as none of the other mares were pregnant. All of the mares watched over this little one.

The light finally became harsh and we headed back very satisfied with what we had gotten.

We went back in the afternoon and found the same horses across the road on the opposite ridge. The stallion had lost most of his limp. Mom was more tolerant of us now. The babe was quite frisky and all the mares found a sand patch to roll in.

Several people in ATVs went by the horses on our way up. They didn't even seem to notice the horses until they came back down and saw us photographing. The horses didn't seem to mind the extra company.

The young palomino mare continued to flirt with the stallion. Only this time, one of the older mares seemed to get jealous. She tore over where the two of them were carrying on, bit the stallion and glared at the palomino.

The horses eventually drifted up the hill. We were very satisfied with the day and headed back to the campground. We thought we would check just one more time along the highway where we had seen the horses the night before. Three family groups! But that is for next time....