Wanted to share this last video from my visit to the desert on Saturday... this is a wild mustang band I have grown to love since first meeting them in 2011 - when we first met the stallion had this painted mare and a couple of other mares.... over the years he had grown his family and in early spring of this year had a quite sizable band for mustang stallion, several mares and in early summer new babies joining the family, expanding their band to one of the largest I had photographed. But then something happened.... I know not what exactly.... challenging stallions, outside interferences, nature doing as it does, and the band changed. Suddenly I was unable to find this stallion but I was seeing his mares with other (previously) bachelor stallions.... Then finally when out with a fellow photographer friend and mustang advocate we found him.... he has only this painted mare with him now, and with them are her foal of this year and last years yearling..... along with a now orphaned foal that they work together to protect. No doubt you will guess from watching that the orphan is the dark foal walking through the sage..... It is looking healthy enough that we have hopes it will survive the winter, and we know from observing that the stallion and mare keep an eye on the youngster to keep it safe, I have watched it interact with this mare as if she were its own mama, standing and bedding with her natural foal, the only thing missing is nursing, but it seems that hopefully it was able to nurse long enough to get the necessary nutrients at least for a few months of its young life. Nature is both beautiful and cruel at times.... as I have spent time with wild mustangs they have shown me to it is possible to accept these things with grace - sometimes it is terribly difficult to know the things that can happen in nature (or life), but one never knows the beauty that may come out on the other side of that cruelty unless they stick through it, in the care from a mare and stallion for an orphan there is beauty.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 12:21:14 +0000