The chestnut pony was grazing alone along the side of the path near the car park entrance at 14:20 this afternoon. She was very friendly and came over to say hello. Gradually, six more ponies wandered out of the thicket to the north and joined us. They were equally friendly, coming over to greet me before enjoying some strokes and rubs. Although there were a fair few flies around, the ponies didn’t seem too bothered. They were all happy, relaxed, and looking well.
The group slowly followed the path northwest toward the ammo compound, munching on plenty of gorse along the way. Several ponies took breaks from grazing to come over for more strokes, clearly enjoying the attention. I spent ages brushing Davinia, only for her to immediately roll around on the path as soon as we were done!
Despite a thorough search of the surrounding area, I couldn't find the final pony. I set off on a wider search and came across the yearlings near ///limits.novelist.loss at 15:30. They wandered over to say hello and enjoyed some strokes. After a long chin rub, yearling 276 went for a refreshing drink of water.
I found the last pony resting under the trees near ///face.snowy.annoys at 15:45. She came over to greet me and enjoyed a few strokes before standing quietly beside me, closing her eyes and fully relaxing. She seemed perfectly fine but appeared to want some alone time today. When I said goodbye, she followed me back out to the main path where the others were grazing, but soon wandered off on her own along the track in the direction of the cattle. The yearlings were now grazing in the heather east of where I had found them earlier.
I spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between the ponies and the cattle. By 16:45, the yearlings had started to settle down to chew their cud near ///sprains.ultra.misty. By 17:00, all eight ponies were grazing near the ammo compound. I began saying my goodbyes shortly after but ended up lingering a while longer.
On two separate occasions, I had to politely ask people to stop feeding the ponies. The second time, at around 17:15, the man was not particularly pleased with my request. He questioned who I was and showed no interest in understanding the reasons behind it. He also refused to believe there was signage at each entrance requesting people not to approach or feed the ponies.
The cows and the ponies were all good today.
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The lament of equestrians worldwide - rolling after being brushed!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the note about people feeding them, I have long suspected this to be the case, and I am at present creating/ordering better signage for the gates to reinforce the message. I am also looking into whether the Trust can have a presence on the local Facebook pages to post about this, as well as liaising with the MOD to help us police this if they see people doing it. Thank you for having a go at engaging with people though.