.
The herd starting running across the Rd. and I ran to try and see which direction they were going once they entered into trees. It was dark where they entered the trees and and could not tell. I had managed to shoot off a few shots with my Nikon as the stallion circled and went into the trees. I could see movement of one or two horses just a little way in and than only one horse remained. I approached the trees carefully as these were wild horses and I needed to be mindful of that. Than I saw the one, he was a big brown stallion with a long mane. He watched me carefully and I watched him. I watched his ears and tail to see if he felt threatened in anyway. His ears weren't back he wasn't pawing the ground and his tail was moving a bit but not swishing. I took a few more shots and than started talking to him gently. He was listening as his ears were up and I moved forward slowly just a bit and captured a few more image of him. He was what I'd call a handsome horse and I was amazed to be this close to a real wild horses or as the locals call them wildies. He was a big boy as I said earlier as the Alberta wild horses tend to be. He moved back a bit and slowly entered the meadow. I backed up and saw that Cam, my son had followed me in, so together we slowly entered the meadow. It was such a special time for me to be entering this beautiful sun light place that was mostly surrounded my spruce trees and colourful brush. The grass looked yellowish in colour ready for the winter. At the far end of the meadow I could see four smaller black horses. Two of them seemed to be fighting and I was excited at the possiblity of capturing some images of that, but between them and us just a little to my left was the stallion or as I like to call him the guardian. He was watching our every move. I shot off a few more images of him than moved closer to the two who were fighting. As I approached I scanned the meadow and that is when I saw the other big stallion. He was off to my right and farther back and he was also watching us. He was a bit bigger than the guardian but looked like he was older. Oh the stories he could tell. I looked back at the guardian and this time got low and shot off a few more images of him. I was loving that low angle as I could also include more of his surroundings including some sky. The backlighting was great and rimmed him nicely. I than focus back on the two fighting and every time I sensed one or both would rear I'd shoot off a bunch of shots as I really wanted to capture that. At some point I figured it was just a younger horses who was being a pain to a older mare. Than all of a sudden the fighting stopped and they started grazing. What I do know about horses is that when they start grazing it could go on for a least an hour. At that point I remember thanking God for this wonderful time spent with these wildies. I have come such a long way on my post encephalitis journey and here I was hanging out with wild horses. Wow! I felt so grateful.
I walked over to my son and we slowly walked out of the meadow. As we exited the meadow I turned back and said thank you and goodbye. Some of them looked up I wave and we moved on.
As I look back at these images I'm sadden as I will probably never see this wonderful stallion again. The Alberta government is calling a cull as the ranchers are grumbling about the wildies they don't want to share the crowns grazing land with them. They say the horses are bad for our ecosystem. Haha that is laughable, if anything is bad for the ecosystem it's their thousands of cattle. The horses are part of the ecosystem and were here before the Spanish ever got here. STOP THIS NONSENSE, STOP THE CULL ALBERTA!
