GUARDIA Civil officers in Oviedo found a newborn foal wandering along a main road in the early hours of the morning, and managed to reunite him with his mum.
He was seen, distressed and disoriented, on the AS-112 regional highway at 03.00 this morning (Tuesday) between Collanzo and Llanos de Aller.
Catching him was not difficult, but finding his mother proved tricky.
Although they could hear her neighing in an agitated manner several fields away, the darkness and the dense undergrowth meant they could not work out where she was or reach her.
Officers found an enclosed paddock with suitable fencing nearby and placed the foal there until daylight, when they returned and began the search.
They worked out the baby had probably fallen from a nearby meadow down the low grass verge onto the carriageway.
Now with improved visibility, they were able to follow the mare's cries and find her, and immediately saw they had got the right horse when the foal hotfooted it to her side and she 'talked' to him.
Police hung around to make sure there was no issue with the mare rejecting the baby after he had been separated from her, and to make sure he was feeding normally.
On their Twitter site, the Guardia Civil wrote: “It was difficult...but this morning we were able to reunite them.”
They added the hashtag #ParaServirYProteger ('To Serve and to Protect'), 'without distinguishing between species'.
