Day 3 - Base Ger Camp

Up at 6.00 for an early walk along valley. There were Snowfinches and Isabelline Wheatears in camp, and Pacific Swift flying along the valley. On one of the rock faces we found a House Martin with nest, which it visited regularly and another nest which this time was a Crag Martin. Other birds along the valley were Eastern Black Redstart, Brown Accentor and a Cuckoo was heard. It was a lovely valley getting narrower, with several flowers, including a saxifrage plus mouse ear.  There was a small stream running along the bottom which just petered out and disappeared into the ground. A dead Red Fox was a sad sight but we also saw Altai Gobi Silver Vole, living in burrows on the valley sides, usually under a bush.

We returned for a lovely breakfast, with fried eggs, cucumber, tomato and bread/buns and cheese
before driving out to a valley, which was Pica central, passing Alashan Ground Squirrels along the way. We stopped and spent some time walking along the track looking out for mammals. The scenery was lovely and we had Koslovs Accentor, Pere David’s Snowfinch, Steppe Eagle and Upland Buzzards. We saw lots of Alashan Ground Squirrels, Midday Gerbils and Daurian Picas. There were some Yaks on the meadows and up on the hill tops.

We then drove to valley of Ar where we stopped to scan for Altai Snowcock but with no joy. We saw a few blue butterflies but identification was very difficult as there is little literature, the best we could do was Silver-spotted Blue and also Small Tortoiseshells.

We spent some time cold searching with a stop at old Snow Leopard site and Gannu went up the valley for signs of Boomba (pee and scratch marks). He reported some, but thought they were old, however Tumen thought they may have been rain affected so a camera trap was set up to see.
We drove further up and through a col/saddle to other side of mountains, where we could see the steppes in the distance before turning round and making our way back with a stop at the col to enjoy the panorama. There were a few nice plants including a Saxifrage and Oxytropis.

We drove back for a lovely lunch of rice, veg,  fried beef bits. Two nomads on horses called, joined by two others for a short time. Two of the horses were tied to some poles and their saddles removed while their riders chatted to Tumen. We started to walk down the valley with Brown Accentor, Lammergeier, Koslov’s Accentor and more blue butterflies when we heard Chris calling with the news that the nomads had found a half-eaten foal carcass, killed by a snow leopard, which seemed to still be active.

We went back to camp, ready to leave at short notice but waited for news from two more nomads and a long discussion about the feasibility of going to watch. The plan was to leave at five to go and scan. We drove through the valleys and then off-road across some high meadows to a spot where a short climb up a scree hillside to a rocky top which looked out over a valley with one Ger in the bottom. We scanned for a while then moved to a better position to scan the area near the carcass. We watched some Ibex on the skyline and we could see lots of Ground-squirrels near the Ger and a Brown Accentor flew through. We saw a couple of butterflies and found an amazing fly on rock but no sign of the leopard.

Two rounds of salad and cheese sandwiches were handed round before the Sun dropped and we returned to camp for a quick cup of tea before heading for bed.