Another trip to the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range

Visitors to the Circle B Bar T over the last 15 years have seen a lot of Montana and Wyoming but it has only been recently that the wild horses in Pryor Mountains have been discovered by Clint & Marty. We  invited the Johnsons plus Dana and Kate Teegardin to joint us with the anticipation of seeing some different country and some wild horses. The drive from Fishtail is about 2 1/2 hours and the plan was to have dinner in Edgar, Montana on the trip home.

As we entered the wild horse range, everyone was on the lookout for wild horses. Before we got to the area where you can see the Big Horn Canyon, we saw another kind of bighorns.

 The Bighorn Canyon was next and still no horses. We were almost through the wild horse section of the park when what should we see but 4 wild horses, and they were all stallions. While we we taking photos and enjoying the experience, this photograph was captured, it was titled, "I've got a secret"

If you have observed the blog recently, you know that I have figured out how to get the names of the wild horses. The name of the dun was easy. It is Kemmerer. There were 3 black stallions and that took several days to find out my favorite. He was the stallion sharing the secret with Kemmerer and his name is Hawk.

After you leave the wild horse area you approach several ranches. The most popular is the Lockhart ranch. You can walk throughout the ranch, but the most interesting part is to visit the buildings that are still there. They are in good shape, considering their age. This is the background of the name and the ranch.

This makes for an interesting visit. The next photograph is one of the buildings and Kay Johnson walking through the doorway. You have to admit it looks like it's in pretty good shape to be over 60 years old.

It was now time to start our return. The real question was, will be seen any horses on the way out of the range. When we got to the area where we saw the 4 horses on our way in, we spotted them again. They had crossed the road but were very visible. Kemmerer was posing for us when I captured this photo of him.

If you haven't been to the Pryors, it's worth a trip. We'll probably be back with other friends so keep watching the blog for more wild horses.

 

Wildlife in the Winter

We have just returned from a drive through our part of Montana as well as a day in Yellowstone National Park. We started with snow on the ground, temperatures in the teens and twenties during the day, and the shortest days of the year. What does that mean to the wildlife?

First of all there are no bears as they are hibernating. Those animals that spend the warmer seasons in the higher altitudes have migrated out of the mountain peaks and into areas where there is a better possibility of grazing. Mating season is mostly over by now with the exception of the wolves and coyotes.

So . . . . . what did we see? The buffalo or bison were everywhere and you know what they look like. The snow wasn't deep enough to create a great obstacle for them to graze below the snow, they had already mated, so they were just surviving the winter.

However, the bighorn sheep are at much lower elevations. There were lots of them to see including this year's crop of babies. A few of the boys were still making love to the girls as seen in this photograph.

 This big guy was more intent on eating than posing for my camera, so here he is scrounging for something to eat. His body shows no ill effect from the lack of lush grazing.

 The pronghorns (antelopes) have had problems traveling to new destinations in the winter time as more ranch type fences keep them from migrating.  We did take a back road in the Gardiner area and saw more pronghorns than we have seen in a long time.  This one had wandered off the the herd . . . . .

and these were headed across the field along with a larger herd

Yes, we did see a coyote, at first it was just posing for this photograph

and then it decided to wander away from the photographer

and finally, we did find a male elk huddling in a ditch. For those who are impressed by antlers, this guy is a winner.

and huddled near one of the mountains was this small herd of elk

We have plans to return to Yellowstone in January, February, and March along with an overnight stay at our favorite resort, Chico Hot Springs. Stay tuned and see what we find next.