Wild Horses Roam on Assateague Island National Seashore

12/22/2022

Assateague Island’s wild horses are well known, and I have heard about them for years but have never been there to photograph the wild horses of Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland. I have been living in the Virginia area for over 30 years and just recently made my first trip there.

As usual, I arrived at my photography location of Assateague Island National Seashore prior to sunrise. Of course, I did take pictures at sunrise on the beach, and I will ,share those pictures later. I was hopeful to see some wild horses on the beach that morning, but that did not happen.

However, after sunrise, we drove around the National Seashore and found the first wild horses of the day near the campground. The family included a foal that was still nursing. These wild horses were grazing on the grasses along the sides of the road. Since there was no traffic in the early morning on that particular road, I stood in the middle of the road giving as much distance as I could from the wild horses so that I would not disturb or disrupt their normal behavior.

Signs are located through out Assateague Island National Seashore to remind visitors not to feed, touch, or approach the wild horses/wildlife. It is important to remember that the wild horses in Maryland are not domesticated horses. They’re wild and potentially dangerous to visitors. It also suggested by staff at the National Seashore to remain at least 40 feet away from the Assateague wild horses. It is important to the wild horses’ survival to maintain your distance when photographing the wild horses or any other wildlife.

As we were beginning to head out from the National Seashore area to a local café up the road for some coffee and breakfast, we found several of the wild horses just outside the entrance gate. There were 7 Assateague wild horses grazing the grasses in the fields along the side of the entrance road to Assateague Island National Seashore. One of the wild horses spent a long time rubbing its body parts on a tree and occasionally eating the grass at the base of that tree,

We only spent the morning time there at the National Seashore photographing the wild horses. Assateague Island National Seashore was a place where I really wanted to spend some time in the field photographing the wild horses. Even though I did not see any wild horses on the beach and did not get that dream image of a horse on the beach at sunrise, I did get to photograph 10 different wild horses that morning. I am very happy with the collection of Assateague wild horses images that I photographed on my first visit to Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland and hope to make more future visits there.

For 2023, I will be adding a gallery of the Assateague wild horses to my website. Hope you will check back for this new gallery of wild horses at the beginning of the new year.

Happy holidays and Happy New Year!!!! Hope you enjoy these few other wild horse pictures below.

Thank you for reading my Field Notes Blog, and I hope you will share this post with others.

Let’s preserve and conserve our natural world!!!

All the very best,

Lori

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