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| Pronghorns grazing the Llano Alto |
As we've traveled around New Mexico sightseeing with our visitor from California, we've passed by a number of stands and herds of the ubiquitous but elusive pronghorn, the North American antelope-mimic that people can spend a lifetime Out West never outwitting or even seeing.
In our area, they graze with the cattle as the sun goes down in the late afternoon and early evening, trying to blend in as it were, passing for dappled calves you might say, though we have seen them in the fields at high noon as well. They get through the barbed wire fences with ease, the cattle seem to enjoy their somewhat skittish company, and the grazing land seems only lightly touched by their presence.
Yesterday, as we passed by the grazing herds of cattle and pronghorn on our way to a literary evening at the IAIA south of Santa Fe, we noticed the antelope were all keeping approximately the same distance from the road, about 800 to 1000 yards, just beyond the distance it was easy to see them or a rifle shot might reach, and I thought, "How wise. These animals are very sharp." Indeed.
