I'm in awe of nature and how it instills the power, the strength and the shear determination to survive like it has in Carter Reservoir Mustang Stallion nicknamed Sparrow Hawk. I would never have thought less than one year later I'd be sitting here writing the continued saga of such a gravely injured wild horse.
This is the continued story that began May '17 as first told September '17 on our Carter Chatter blog page.
June 2017 was the day my heart was broken as we saw this magnificent Carter Reservoir wild stallion with a broken leg.
August 2017 we saw him near the same place we had seen him two months earlier. All I could say repeatedly was "Oh, my gosh! Unbelievable! Wow! Oh, my gosh". When a horse breaks a back leg they have to put weight on it to walk. Each time Hawk took a step I just shivered. Each time he lifted his leg to swat at flies the broken lower half dangled. I wondered how he had survived. How had he not died from some kind of infection? I remember thinking he probably wouldn't make it through the winter. Then....(continued below)
Meet Freedom! He was nicknamed Freedom as we had a wonderful encounter with him on the 4th of July 2016. We were pretty sure he had lost his family to another stallion as he was continually chased away from one particular wild Carter family band.
May 2017 we meandered over a hill and ran into Freedom. He was by himself seeming to wait for the other bands to migrate through.
Meet Rose (bay mare) & Sage her 2016 colt by Tumbleweed.
Now back to the story....
Then....what do my eyes behold? Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Could it really be Freedom AND Hawk following Rose? It had been 9 months since finding Hawk so badly injured and 7 months since the last time we had seen him. By this time tears are trickling down my face. I was jumping up and down inside and even now I'm still speechless and in so much awe of his desire to live.
Rose- formerly with Tumbleweed '15 - early '18
We had seen Rose showing signs of an estrous cycle in May'17 right by Tumbleweeds side so we can say pretty confidently that Rose looks like she's about ready to foal. She very calmly walked by ignoring both Freedom and Hawk. There were no signs of Tumbleweed although we had seen Sage the day before. Our speculation would be that Freedom has taken Rose for himself but I don't think she's too happy about it.
The following photos show the two #CarterReservoirStallions as they followed Rose through the high desert of the Carter Reservoir HMA.
Wild horses are amazing! They are amazingly resilient and born survivalists! It is hard to see things like this, but they are wild and free living on their terms. Hawk's spirit is loud and very clear in the following photos. He is WILD & FREE and one MAGNIFICENT Carter Reservoir Wild Stallion!
Darice Massey
Sparrow Hawk & Freedom - March 2018
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