Today is my birthday! I went to White Mountain Wilderness where I saw wild horses, pottery, a stream, heard coyotes, and took some good pictures.

I saw these cows near the Trading Post.

Sierra Blanca, a 12000 foot extinct volcano, seen from near the cows.

I visited the stream and then went south into the foot hills.

There were corrals for horses near the campground. I didn’t know they were there.

I saw horses about 30 yards away in the foot hills. These pictures were taken with zoom. When they knew I was there they turned toward me and watched. Then some came toward me several steps, stopped, and looked. Seeing their defensive formation and caution, I realized that they were not tame. They waked away. Then later I saw a herd and made the movie above.

I like this picture. The sunlight, colors, and the black and white horses give it an artistic look. This is a frame from a movie with just a few frames.

I went to the south and rested near a tree. I enjoyed the silence here. This antler was there. I ate trail mix and freeze dried ice cream (gifts, thank you). Later I heard coyotes.

Further south a hill top provided a good place to make the 360 degree panorama. I also made one of the grassy area. I’ll explore there sometime. The cholla cactus is to the west in the panorama. From here I started back.

For the 360 degree panorama I put the camera on my tripod and used the manual camera settings. I checked what settings automatic chose and then set the manual ones to those. That way all the panorama pictures were taken with the same settings. I used MS Image Composite Editor to put the pictures together.

On the way back I saw these young horses. Then some horses moved into the trees across a gully from me. A tall mare stayed and watched me. She wanted me to stop watching them and snorted to say so. I made these movies of her.

I went back to the campground where I had parked. The attendant, who has lived there for 15 years, came by and I gave him the blog address of a mutual friend. I experimented with my camera’s night photography modes. That didn’t work well for sunsets and stars. I waited here
until dark to see the Milky Way but the moon was too bright and it probably wouldn’t rise until later. I did enjoy seeing the stars and the moon and smelling the campfires.