Heading Out for Cats!

Up bright and early for a long drive out to the snow leopard camp.  I managed to get a shot of the giant traditional boot on the way out of Khovd.

It wasn't long before we turned off the paved road, onto what passes in Mongolia as a road.  I had trouble seeing that road, and there were multiple choices of paths one could take.  Often, when you could see the "road", it was time for drivers to choose a different route to take.  Over time, I came to realize that in Mongolia, what passes as a "road" is more like a "concept of a road!"  Bruce, I've never asked you to navigate this type of area!

For the longest time, it was just plain, barren ground.  Bina said it would get green once it warmed up.  There were ice and snow patches that would melt to make water on the dirt, and there were a few spots where a patch had melted and there was some green.  Not much, but some.  There were some small birds that were impossible to photograph.  Bina said they were horned lark or Mongolian lark, with the horned lark being most prevalent.  We did see a sand grouse, but it flew away before I could get an identifiable shot.  After a while (a couple of hours), we came across a herd of camel.  Livestock herds here are camel, cattle, horses, and goats.

We also drove past what appeared to be deposits of bentonite, similar to the Bentonite Hills in Utah.  I found resources that indicated bentonite is found in the Gobi, but we were on the Western Steppe.  The fact that nobody has documented it in this inhospitable land doesn't mean it's not there.  But it could easily be another mineral causing these colors.

About halfway through, around lunch time, we found some pavement for a few kilometers.  That gave us an opportunity to stop for gas and grab some snacks from the back of the car.  We saw lots more livestock, including goats, cattle, and horses.  I only took pix of the goats crossing the road. 

At some point, after we passed a tire on the ground, we turned off the pavement, down the embankment (which wasn't small), and back on the concepts of roads.  This would be the last pavement we would see for several days.  I was so surprised at leaving the road like we did that I didn't even think to snap a picture!  I have to admit that, while I never stopped being amused by it, I did grow accustomed to road signs being replaced with tires and animal skulls with beer bottles or pieces of fabric sticking out of them.  And somehow, these guys knew where they were going - which tire, which animal skull, which shrub  to turn at.  The closest we came to getting lost was one of them deciding that we should be on the track next to us.  After another several hours, we pulled into our ger (yurt) camp.  I didn't take a camp shot this time.  I took one on almost the last night when we came in from looking for wildlife, so the lighting on it is much different than these.  I did get some shots of parts of the camp including the rock formation that looks a little like a snow leopard!

 

These guys with Soaring Expeditions are awesome.  They rent the gers from local herders and members of the closest community.  They also hire locally.  When we arrived, we settled in, had dinner, and got ready for our first day out.  I didn't take pictures inside my ger until the second night, but I'm going to go ahead and show you the inside now.

My ger had a little page that had 10 interesting fact about the Mongolian ger.  This included statements about what some parts stand for, the direction they are oriented, the fact that they are one of the oldest housing forms, and that the traditional gers are made with no nails or screws.  In fact, the ger I was staying in was mostly tied together, but you could tell that more recent repairs were made with screws.

Heat escaped through the top, and the smoke escaped through the chimney from the wood/coal stove.  My ger also had lots of decorations on the wood in the ceiling.

We did have a chemical toilet, so I didn't need to go outside if I needed to go.

As you can see, I had already exploded around my ger.  I had two beds and a table in my ger.  I also had a sink and a mirror that was just high enough to reflect my boobs every morning while I was brushing my teeth!  We had a light bulb that was run from a battery, and once Yumchin returned with the Starlink, we had wifi while the generator was running.  We did not have showers, but I brought wipes and could heat water on the wood stove.  I was also wearing merino wool, which is good for eating stink.

All the time leading up to this trip, I was afraid I was going to get cold, but the ger was definitely well heated.  I actually had to ask the guy who kept the fire going to skip a time or two.  It was so hot, I had to sleep over the covers until the fire burned down.  I slept well, though.

Up the next morning and headed out for our first search.  The trackers headed out before we had breakfast, so they were already searching.  When we headed out, Bina would take the spotting scope out and our driver would take binoculars and search along the rocks in the next slope.  We always searched from far away and then determined the best way to get as close as we safely could.  We saw an ibex (which I missed), and then got a call from the trackers that they had Pallas' cat.  So, off we went.  We sat in the car and waited for him to come out of his burrow.  Here is my first good look at him!

They live in burrows that they take over when marmots move out, and they eat gerbils.  He turned and looked all directions, and at one point, a falcon swooped down and grabbed the only gerbil we saw.  We have to take away his vicious cat card, because when the falcon came, the cat jumped back down into his burrow.  Of course, the falcon is about the same size as the cat!  Pallas' cat is about the size of an average house cat, about 6-10 lbs and 18-26 inches.  They are soooo fluffy, too!  I got lots of pictures, but he never came out of his burrow, so I'll show different sides of his head, including when he was looking behind.

It's hard to see the back of his head.

and when he was looking in my direction

But mostly, he just had the top of his head out and his eyes.

After lunch, we went back out.  We checked a different area, and we found an upland buzzard,

elk

ibex,

bearded vulture,

and another Pallas's cat walking along the top of the rocks.  Nobody got any pictures of him before he went on the other side.

When I started trying to load my pictures into Lightroom and see what I had, I learned that my tablet wouldn't recognize the .CR3 files that are the raw shots from the Canon.  Remind me again to never travel without my laptop!  It was very difficult not knowing what I'm getting!  

Another person joined us in camp today, too.  She's from Hong Kong and will be guided by Yumchin.  She had been to see snow leopards before in the Altai Mountains, but wanted to get closer looks.  Apparently, the Margaz Mountains (where we are) are a much better place to see them than the Altai are, which is what Bina had told me when we decided to make the itinerary flexible.  

It was a very good sign that on our first day out, we saw cats!  An awesome start!