Close Encounters of the Animal Kind [VIDEO]

Sure, mankind rules the world. For good or bad, we are at the top of the animal heap. Though sometimes you get reminded that you are just one almost insignificant being on a still-wild planet. The first time I saw a herd of wild horses, I was camping with a friend on a remote cliffside in western Colorado. We were eighteen years old and spotted the group grazing about a half-mile away. We grabbed our camera and hiked over to the small pasture where we spotted them. We were just below this area and decided our best bet to get any decent pictures was to run up into the field where the horses would see us and run the opposite direction. We would snap as many pictures of them running away as we could and that would be it. This is before cell phone camera. We probably had a few frames of film left in our Kodak Instamatic. So we charged up into the grassy area and they were gone. We were disappointed, but a few seconds after we stopped there was a low rumble which grew louder. A herd of seven or eight horses trotted right by us, maybe thirty feet away. So we took chase figuring they would be gone in a few seconds, but as we were running, they suddenly stopped and the stallion turned toward us and stared us down. We realized we were in their world and they ran the show. We proceeded to sit on a nearby boulder and watched the stallion, several mares and a young horse graze for nearly an hour. The females and young one ate while the male didn't take his eyes off of us. It was really a gift and a lesson learned.

These two videos reminded me of that lesson and how lucky one can be if they just observe.