ls 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.....
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