I’ve posted photos of these horses several times in the past but these three are new to my blog.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Several years ago a couple of friends and I spent a May morning with the Onaqui wild horse herd in Utah’s west desert. We had to walk a pretty good distance to get anywhere near the horses (we were lucky just to find them) and then we just waited to see what would happen.<\/p>\n
Eventually the horses approached us more closely than I would ever have approached them.<\/p>\n
The mood of the herd was decidedly mixed. Most of the time most of the horses were calm and relaxed but there was periodic and palpable tension in the air, especially amongst the stallions. At times I felt vulnerable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/wild-horse-1472-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"wild-horse-1472-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
The frolicking young colts had a calming effect on me and I spent a lot of time with them in my viewfinder. But doing so meant I couldn’t keep track of what was going on around me as well as I wanted to. When you’re watching the body language of adult horses you can usually tell when there’s tension or a fight is about to break out so if necessary you can take evasive action.<\/p>\n
An angry wild horse with its ears laid back gets your attention, especially when you’re on foot a half mile from your vehicle. But looking through your viewfinder isn’t conducive to keeping a close eye on all of the horses in your vicinity.<\/p>\n
Believe me, you don’t want to be close to fighting wild horses.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/wild-horse-1384-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"wild-horse-1384-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
Suddenly these two stallions began fighting furiously and I was too close to them for comfort. I had made every effort to give them a respectful distance but they didn’t reciprocate.<\/p>\n
They were flailing with their hooves as they tried to bite each other. The dust, the noise, the flying dirt clods and the battle scars on their tough hides were intimidating enough but when they…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/wild-horse-1380-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"wild-horse-1380-ron-dudley\\"")
<\/p>\n
rose to full height above me I felt like an ant beneath angry giants.<\/p>\n
They weren’t after me of course but if I inadvertently got in their way I’d be toast. To give you an idea of how close I was, this photo was taken at 275 mm and the horses almost filled the frame vertically.<\/p>\n
It was an experience I’ll never, ever forget. And next time, if there is a next time, I’ll give a higher priority to my own safety than to the photos I’m taking. Live and learn.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Note: Since these photos were taken, in a highly controversial move the BLM has rounded up and removed a large number of horses from the Onaqui herd. But that’s a controversy beyond the scope of this blog post.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An equine change of pace today. (3 photos)<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[394,2002],"tags":[6251,6249,6250,6248],"class_list":["post-108922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fighting-bird-behaviors","category-wild-horses","tag-fighting-wild-horses","tag-frolicking-colts","tag-onaqui-wild-horse-herd","tag-utahs-west-desrt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/wild-horse-1384-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-skO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108922"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108969,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108922\/revisions\/108969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}