Post 22170
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Excursions from their mountain-top homes are occasionally made into the lowlands. In the spring they go down early for green stuff, which comes first to the lowlands. They go to salt licks, for a ramble, for a change of food, and for the fun of it. The duration of these excursions may be a few hours or several days.
Most of the time the full-grown rams form one flock; the ewes and youngsters flock by themselves. Severe storms or harassing enemies may briefly unite these flocks. One hundred and forty is the largest flock I ever counted. This was in June, on Specimen Mountain, Colorado; and the sheep had apparently assembled for the purpose of licking salty, alkaline earth near the top of this mountain. Wild sheep appear to have an insatiable craving for salt and will travel a day’s journey to obtain it. Occasionally they will cross a high, broken mountain-range and repeatedly expose themselves to danger, in order to visit a salt lick.
The young lambs, one or two at a birth, are usually born about the first of May in the alpine heights above timber-line. What a wildly royal and romantic birthplace! The strange world spreading far below and far away; crags, snowdrifts, brilliant flowers,–a hanging wild garden, with the ptarmigan and the rosy finches for companions! The mother has sole care of the young; for several weeks she must guard them from hungry foxes, eagles, and lions. Once I saw an eagle swoop and strike a lamb. Though the lamb was knocked heels over head, the blow was not fatal. The eagle wheeled to strike again, but the mother leaped up and shielded the wounded lamb. Eaglets are occasionally fed on young lambs, as skulls near eagle’s nests in the cliffs bear evidence.