Yes! That’s rain! That’s a kestrel in the rain! And if you look closely, you can see some raindrops bouncing off his shoulder.
What a gorgeous little splash of feathery autumn orange on a dreary – and utterly, gloriously WET – day!
Thank you, Hurricane Polo!
About a week ago, I was out with Flash’s band. They were browsing, and I was trying to catch a pic of them among the flowering chamisa (rabbitbrush), but no one was cooperating with heads high enough to see at least eyes. … I mean, didn’t they know I was trying to take *pictures*?! 🙂 (Tis the season of rabbitbrush in the low country, which gives us our fall color as opposed to the showy aspen of the high country and the cottonwoods along the riparian ways.) Flash browsed along with them, until he sort of purposely marched off.
Not far away, he stopped, then turned back to look at his mares.
And I think he was saying, “Time to go for water, ladies.”
But the ladies were not done browsing, and not one of them paid him any mind at all.
He came back … went away again … still ignored. Interestingly, he seemed to want them to follow, and he never did move them (snake them) ahead. He waited, patiently (?), and I slipped away to leave them to their browsing and water-finding (they were immediately east of a deep-and-wide drainage).
Sweet, beautiful old (she’s not really thaaat old – 18) Gaia looking glam with her single, thick braid. Lovely darling girl.
Once again, Chipeta let the band wander away (they weren’t too far ahead of her), then put on a spurt of the dramatics as she trotted her way back to them in the brief light from the almost-setting sun in a little open cloud window against a stormy sky to the south.
One of those lucky catches by the camera before she was obscured by the trees between us. 🙂
Maiku had a hand – err, hoof – in the momentary situation that resulted in Rowan moving along in yesterday’s post.
Both bands were grazing close to a boundary fence where the grass was (is) good and untouched after most of the season when they’d all (the whole herd) been grazing elsewhere in Spring Creek Basin. Add a bit of recent rain to touch up the green, and more than a couple of wandering bands found this good area, which meant that I found *them*. 🙂
(There was no contact between either horses or fence.)
It didn’t last long, but she looked so WILD with her mane flying that I wanted to share her!
Flash and Juniper under a partial rainbow 🙂 Always the gold!
The poor pinon tree shows the effects of this summer’s terrible drought (in a long stretch of years of drought), but behind Chipeta, rain was moving across the southeastern/eastern horizon while the sun was setting, shining a lovely bit of light on her.
The forecast was wrong again; we GOT rain yesterday. I love it when it’s wrong in the positive. 🙂
These pix of Corazon were taken the day after the pic in the previous post of him.
Still feisty if he even thinks another stallion is making a move. 🙂
Buckeye. Sometimes I call him “Grey” without really thinking because he reminds me so much of his (likely) great-grandsire Grey.
(The thing behind him is the back of a marker used by Colorado Parks and Wildlife in their grid patterns to count elk and deer from the air. There are at least a few of them in Spring Creek Basin that I’m aware of. And I’m not sure whether CPW actually still uses them; they’re from the days when it was Colorado Division of Wildlife. Buckeye was getting some good use out of it as a face, poll, ear, jaw and neck scratcher, then as a butt scratcher before I took this pic. :))
**********
Happy autumn equinox! The days already are getting noticeably shorter, and I am sooooo happy for autumn to arrive after a very long, very hot, very dry summer!
