Ikh Nart Nature Reserve, Mongolia

This nature reserve was established in 1996, it is an uninhabited area on a plateau at 4,500', and therefore the pristine ecology of the area has been retained. The reserve contains Argali sheep, Siberian ibex, and many Mongolian gazelles. We were very fortunate to see them during our 4 days, along with a number of raptors including Golden Eagles, Cinerous Vultures, Little Owls and other smaller birds. The vultures made huge nests. We also saw some small mammals, the Mongolian pika being the most common, several tolai hares and jerboas.

The terrain is desert grassland with the rocky outcrops and canyons, and then occasional sand dune. We got our bearings eventually but there are few landmarks. One useful one was a large ovoo, with lots of scarves and flags. The tracks all look alike so it was very useful to have the images which Andrew had downloaded into his iPad from Google Earth to his GPS app.

One of the striking features for me was the number of grasshoppers, they were very well camouflaged until they jumped, when they displayed very red parts. The valley bottoms support stands of Siberian elm and willows, whilst the predominant grass is onion grass. Where the land is heavily grazed the artemesia takes over. Most of the wild flowers were over, but there were still a few asters and the odd potentilla and something which looked like a miniature mimosa. There were some very colourful lichens on the rocks too. The rock formations were pancake like granite, very grippy to walk on!