Vehicles and navigation

The camp is being invaded by camels! For the last three days, a pack of 20-30 Bactrian camels have been hanging out in and around camp. They are a little shy but not enough to stay away from the little flower bed at the patio, bastards… I have discovered that camels are very hungry individuals that will eat almost anything, fast. I have always wanted a camel and I think that I wrote earlier that apparently one needs to have at least two camels, otherwise they will be unhappy. Well, I studied my immobilization guide book to see if we have any good drugs to knock down a camel. Midgi thought that it was a very good idea but I realized that it would be hard to hide the camels in case their owner would come looking for them. I will have to investigate how much a camel costs and if there are any requirements involved in owning and driving one (Tom said that it’s pretty hard to learn camel-handling). I actually have a Mongolian driver’s license. There are some categories that we don’t have back home but I have not found camel so I think that I will be fine from a legal standpoint.

Sorry, this was suppose to be a vehicle post, I think that camels can count as vehicles though.

When we came here Tom said that when he worked here he had seat belts installed in his car and everyone who saw that thought is was funny since the first thing that most people would do when they bought a car was to cut the seat belts off and throw them out (assuming there were any, Russian vans don’t have any I think).

Well, a couple of days after our Delica (which is a fairly modern car) came Midgi asked me what the warning light on the dashboard was. I explained that it meant that at least one person in the car didn’t use seat belt. He thought this was extremely funny and laughed for a long, long time. One time when we came to Gurvantes we passed a police and Midgi put on the seat belt immediately. I think that you can get a ticket if you don’t wear seat belts in case the car is equipped with them, which might be why they throw them out…

I have killed our motorbike. Feels bad but it was probably not suitable for this terrain, we tried to improve it with bigger tires but I think that meant that the suspension had too little space to work in. The back wheel hit the “bike body” in some bumps and the metal sticks that runs from the central hub to the outer ring got bent (I am not very good at English vehicle terms, hope that you understand). In the end, the metal sticks got loose and the entire tire got instable. With my usual luck, this happened about 16 km from camp, straight line distance, about one and a half hour before sunset. I took a look at the tire and realized that we will need a new or take this to a garage to have it fixed. As I am taking off clothes to prepare for a fast march back to camp a guy comes by on his bike. We “talked” about the situation and the bike and then he offered to drive me to camp. Only problem, as I see it, is that he already had his wife and kid on the bike. Now, I don’t want to act spoiled or anything but that seemed a bit crowded to me. I reckon that he thought the same so he just left the wife and kid and off we went. I suppose that he thought that I was an experienced motor biker because he drove fast. And I mean fast. I held on hard to the bike, sure that this would be it, no way that I would survive this. At times we were doing somewhere 70-80 km/hour on a little dirt trail… Well, I don’t know how to say “slow down” and I felt bad for the wife and kid so I kept silent and held on as hard as I could.

They say that Mongols are “born in the horse saddle” but this guy must have been born in a motorbike saddle because he could drive. I thought that I had started to get a hang of this biking thing but I admit it, I am a sissy who doesn’t know anything about riding motorbikes in terrain.

We made it to camp and Oyuna and Midgi was both very happy, they said that they were about to leave to start searching for me, well that would have taken a while. We gave my driver dinner, 10 USD for gas and the trouble and a large can of apricots and some candy for the wife and kid. He seemed happy with this. I am not sure but I think that he didn’t expect anything in return. The Mongolians are extremely friendly and will always lend a helping hand. Well, it seemed fair to me that he (and the wife and kid) should be reimbursed for the gas and have something for the trouble. Only downside is off course if the rumor spreads that the Swede is really dumb and pays good for help and all of a sudden everyone will expect money for nothing at all.

As we were having dinner Midgi asked where the motorbike was, we had decided to collect it with our car the day after, and the man pointed at the map. Only problem was that he pointed at a place maybe 20 km north of where the bike actually was. “No, no” I said, “it’s here” and pointed to where it was. They all thought that was very funny, apparently the man lived near where the bike was and you would think that he knew if he lived in the northern or southern side of the mountain range. I agree with that, it’s just that he pointed at the wrong place so I persisted. They all had a good laugh at the stupid Swede who not only wrecked the bike and couldn’t fix it but he didn’t even know where he was. Well, I am not an expert at many things but I know some stuff about navigation and in my world the sun sets in the west so I knew we had travelled northeast from the bike to camp.

I know that at least three people will now go “What, I remember a time when Orjan screwed up navigation big time”! So to prevent them from writing funny comments of my failures I will do it myself (and leave out the funniest parts).

First time is on survival training with Johan. Our platoon was loaded on the back of a truck, 40 persons cramped up under a canvas with almost no air. In intervals, the officers stopped and dropped a five man patrol, gave the leader (which happened to be me) an A4 page with something that should look like a map with locations and times. We were supposed to make it to these locations on time without being spotted by anyone. We didn’t really know where we were but we started walking and eventually came to a road crossing that looked like the first meeting place so we waited there. For a long time. Eventually an army car came by and two officers jumped out, really angry. We had only covered half the stretch (not easy to know since the “map” didn’t have a scale) one of the officers said- “you better walk all night”. We tried that but since we didn’t have any equipment at all and the nights in September are dark we stopped when we were in a spruce plantation. We couldn’t see anything and decided to break some branches, make a bed under a spruce and sleep for a while. We were lying there hugging each other to keep warm (didn’t have any warm clothes either) and when we woke up; we realized that we had made our “bed” in a clearing between five trees.

Second time is a kayaking trip with Peter, Lars and Daniel. We had paddled on the mainland side of an archipelago for a while and were going to cross over to the Koster archipelago (it consists of two bigger islands and lots and lots of small islets quite far out from the mainland), none of us had been there and I was navigating. As we passed the last covering island the waves hit us with full strength and from that point we could only see the others if both happened to be on the same wave. I’m not going to say how big the waves were because mom is reading this and I am not sure anyways, they always seem bigger in a kayak. The waves were “old” though so they were long and rolling and not too bad. Well, I had the map in the kayak and the compass around my neck but I couldn’t let go of the paddle to check the map since that would likely have resulted in me flipping over and it’s really hard to read a map when upside down under water. The result was that I aimed for a big island and when we eventually reached it and went ashore I checked my map and uttered the now infamous words “I am not sure, but we might be at the wrong place”. This was ten years ago and they still remind me…

Sorry, back to the vehicles. Just want to point out that eventually we ended up in the right place in both of the above mentioned occasions.

I find it a bit funny that I am a wildlife, or conservation, biologist and one of the categories that I have learned most about since I started working is vehicles and how to get through terrain. I had an image of a more organic way of working but it’s with regret I write that I have spent some hours polluting this poor planet. I have never been much of a vehicle lover, didn’t have any posters of Ferraris or race bikes in my childhood and I still don’t know much about engines. But I have learned to drive and ride snowmobiles, ATVs, four wheel drive trucks, motorbikes and to dart from helicopters.

I will not deny that I have lots of funny memories from different types of vehicles, like when Katie and I was travelling on a snowmobile along mountainsides in the Rocky Mountains to search a possible cougar kill site. We were hanging from the side of the snow mobile to keep it from flipping over sideways and rolling down the mountain side. Or when we got stuck with ATVs, once in a frozen bog where Kyle and I lifted it up. I admit that I didn’t think that it was possible but the “cougar guys” do not know the meaning of Knapsu and so they did a lot of things that I didn’t really think was possible, at least not in a civilian life (I have grown weak and soft in the latter years).

I guess that some of you want to know where the bike was. Well in the morning, Midji and Oyuna wanted to go to the place that the man said and when I objected they were laughing and shaking their heads so I plugged my GPS into the computer, pulled up our map program and showed them the waypoint of the motorbike (I saved the coordinates since I knew we could not take the same road with the car as I did with the bike). It was more or less exactly where I said it would be. We drove there in silence, loaded the bike into the car and when we were finished the guy who drove me to camp turned up. I think that he said something about it being a good thing that they didn’t listen to me and poor Midji didn’t know what to reply, he looked very awkward.

At the moment, I am scouting the new trap area, deploying cameras and looking for a place to set up a temporary camp. I have found one great narrow ravine with lots and lots of scrapes. The ravine is on the border of our area but unless I find some really good spots I think that I must put some traps in it.

Fashion and dressing tips for the Gobi

It’s getting cold. Or actually, the “microclimates” here differ a lot, making it extremely hard to dress correct. The last nights have been between 7 and 12 degrees below zero and day time range between 2 below zero and 5above. The tricky part is that the sun is still warm (surprising, eh?), so in the middle of the day and when hiking on a sunny slope it can be pretty hot. On the other hand, it is always more or less windy and the wind is really cold. Up on the ridgelines and in shaded canyons it can be pretty cold. So I reckon that if the temperature is zero, that could mean plus 10 in a sunny slope or 15 below in a windy, shaded canyon (the canyons are cool as it is).

A good, thin wind-breaker, a wool cap, gloves and extra clothes in the backpack is very fashionable among westerners this year. Though, the locals do not seem to share the view of what is “hip”. Every time I leave, Oyuna looks very troubled and think that I have way too little clothes on. Many of the people who have been in camp dress really warm, even if we are to take off on a big hike, whereas I dress so that I am cold when we start hiking and get warm from the exercise. Then off course, every time we stop, I feel fine and immediately put on an extra layer that I take off before we start again. Whereas some of my colleagues are too hot and take off clothes when we stop, this is probably the best way to get sick, especially in this wind. The most extreme difference in clothing I have seen so far was two weeks ago, I had a thin wool liner on and another guy had a couple of sweaters and a Helly Hansen down jacket on. I was a little, little sweaty on my back from the backpack and I can imagine how he felt… 

Another funny thing is that Oyuna don’t want me to leave on my own. Since there is no one else in camp that makes fieldwork a bit complicated, unless I bring the cat. She actually followed me to check a kill site (Oyuna that is, not the cat), we had to hike 700 meters, not flat but not really rugged either. Even so, I was a bit afraid that she would fall over dead because she coughed and breathed very hard. After that I think that she decided that I might be able to take care of myself. This part is the funniest of them all. I have quite a lot of survival training and I have lived in remote areas for a substantial time. I am sure that I will be fine for a couple of days even if I would fall badly and not be able to move from the spot, but since I am a Westerner, I reckon that she thinks that I will not make it here on my own. 

She also claims that a young man was attacked and injured by wolves not far from camp last week. Obviously, if the wolves find me, they will definitely attack the Westerner who can’t take care of himself… I am pretty sure that it was a villain dog that bit the man. It’s a lot cooler to be attacked by wolves than a dog though, if you see what I mean. But I don’t know, maybe it was wolves, I wasn’t there… Only thing I know is that there are a whole lot of more or less reliable dogs here. Actually, I think that the “less-reliable dog” was invented in the Gobi. Besides putting an extra layer of felt on the ger, we also shoveled dirt on the edges of the walls to prevent the cold wind from blowing in. This helped substantially; it is almost too warm inside now. I brought out my winter sleeping bag yesterday but I wasn’t able to close it until six o’clock in the morning… I have collected all trap cameras and am moving them to a new area. I heard that the map is on the blog now so I will try to explain where we are going to trap. If you find Mt. Chris, this will be the north western corner of the trap area. Basically, we will search for good trap sites in a square of 3x 3 km from Mt. Chris, more or less.

My knees have taken a little beating and to minimize the hiking (it will take some hiking to find new trap sites) I decided to close the traps. At the time, this seemed reasonable because we haven’t had an unmarked snow leopard visiting the trap area since the 25th of August. Well, four days ago “Inquisitive” stepped in two traps. Or rather, where there should have been two traps. The cat was named Inquisitive by the summer team, reason is that the first pictures we have of it, he/she looks into the camera from a distance of about 20 cm, and the cat keeps looking for a while. Our guess is that the cat is a young individual; it behaves a bit reckless, not at all like Bayartai (Longtail). I think that our youngster is a little afraid of Longtail and dared to visit the trap area because Longtail has been away for a little while. It seems as if he is heading back now though so hopefully, Inquisitive will move into my new trap line. In a little while that is, I have to build it first.

Obviously, I am not jumping around camp in Maasai-warrior style of joy because of this. But partly it feels good because now I have a cat to focus on again. It was a whole lot more fun to build traps and improve them when I was thinking of how to catch Longtail. Since we caught him it has been a bit empty, no cats to struggle with if you see what I mean… Well Inquisitive, the game is on and may the best Swede win…

Preparing for the winter

Nadia left a couple of days ago and now I am all alone again. Don’t know if anyone will come in October or not, I’m fine though. We have had some hectic days and it’s nice to stroll around in camp and not have anything special do to. Speaking of things to do, my brother asked me what I did on a normal day here; figure I might as well write it on the blog for all you curious people.

I get up at about seven, actually, that’s not true anymore. It’s getting cold in the nights here so I get up at about five to start a fire, then I go back to bed again. Usually Oyuna turns up sometime around seven to make breakfast, after breakfast it’s time to climb Signal Mountain. It takes a little more than an hour in the mornings, I know, I know, but I’m not 20 anymore and I can’t run up mountains in the morning. If any of the trap-transmitters are on fast pulse, we pack up and head for that trap to see what has happened. About 90 % of the alarms are false in the sense that there isn’t any animal in the trap. Though one might have stepped in it but not got caught. Or a rodent just tripped the transmitter string, or something else…

 I have 15 trap sites and I check the traps every second or third day, since I split it up, there are usually some traps to check every day. Most of the time there isn’t anything that has to be done with the traps but once in a while I have to restore or improve something. At the same time as I check the traps, I also download the pictures from the trap cameras and when we get back to camp we check the pictures in the computer.

 I also write notes of temperature and weather in a log (it’s warm and sunny would be a good description of the log). In the evening, we climb Signal Mountain again. That’s about the daily routine, obviously, when there are two or more people in camp we split up so that all of us don’t go up the mountain on all occasions.

 It takes almost a full day to go to Gurvantes and buy some groceries and gas cause Midgi and Oyuna runs off on private errands all the time and we usually go there once every other week or so. Obviously I also have cluster checks to do, scouting new trap sites and other occasional field work.

 This afternoon I washed some clothes, first I have to heat up water, then I hand wash the laundry in a basin, arrange a rope in the ger and hang the laundry to dry from the ceiling. It takes quite a long time to wash socks and underwear by hand. Washing myself also takes a lot more time here than back home. I have given up on the shower and just heat up some water on the stove, pour it in the basin and wash inside the ger (it’s actually too cold outside. I know, I know, that’s Knapsu…)

 It’s not bad at all to hike around in the mountains or to sit down for a couple of minutes and enjoy the view in the sun. A couple of weeks ago I was following an ibex trail high up on a very steep mountain side when a golden eagle passed me about 50 meters below. That was really cool. Quite often when we are high up; eagles or lammergeiers come to check us out. It’s not like home where the eagles are merely a spot in the sky; these guys will pass so close that sometimes you don’t need binoculars. Yesterday, I took the motorbike for a quite long drive to check accessibility to some connecting valleys. It’s fun to ride it and a great relaxation from the ordinary life because I have to focus hard to keep it in the track. I’m getting the hang of it after a couple of not-so-good trials.

 Tomorrow we will take down the Office ger and put the felt (wool) layer on the Living ger. It’s getting cold and we need to insulate the ger a bit better. The wooden parts and furniture in the office will be stored in the kitchen. We have already moved everything in to the living ger that I will need for the winter, it’s really cozy in here now. To give a brief description of what it looks like, imagine that you come in from the door: Immediately to the right are two water barrels, then the gas stove, the orange kitchen cupboard, boxes with food and then comes the spare bed. Between that bed and my bed is a locker where I keep my clothes, I have put a blanket on top of the locker and this is Friday’s favorite place. Next to my bed is a shelf with books, papers, a printer and a scanner. Then comes two of the white tables from the office (full of gizmos, a computer, sat phone, pens etc), after that some boxes and last a low shelf for shoes and equipment. In the middle of the ger are the stove and the orange table from the kitchen. In all empty spaces there are boxes and equipment tucked away.  

 If we put in a big load of fuel in the stove it will burn and glow for about five hours, even though it’s not warm in the end. But as long as we maintain the fire we can keep the ger warm. Right now I have two candles burning to light up the ger a bit and as I wrote, it is really cozy. In case we need more beds for visitors we can put up two more bunk beds in a couple of minutes.

 A couple of weeks ago Peter wrote that I am a slacker and as usual I have found a slacker-job. No bills to pay, nothing to worry about, a cook and a care-taker, just like a vacation. I guess that he is right; I have a very good life out here.

Obviously, there are some downsides, I am a bit tired of eating sheep and I really miss my friends and family. Yesterday was opening day for the annual moose hunt in Sweden, since all my family (including my mom but actually not my little sister) hunts we always gather for three days of moose hunt. This is the first time in many years that I’m not there. Well, my brother is in San Diego so I’m not the only one to skip out on the tradition… And last year, Peter and I got sick and were lying in bed with fever, trying to speak to each other. Most of the time, at least one of us was asleep but somehow we still managed to keep a conversation even though none of us knows what we talked about.

 Oh well, almost time for bed. I forgot to write that, we usually go to bed somewhere between nine and ten. There aren’t too much to do once it is dark. I’ve had the same routine when I liven in Masai Mara, to go to bed early and it’s really nice not to be tired more or less all the time in the week.

Pets, wildlife and animals in general

I think that there have been pictures of Friday here for a week now but no explanation of where she came from [Note from Chappen: Orjan cannot read the blog from the field camp]. When Kim and Namshur left the camp they found Friday at the airport in Dalandzadgad. Kim was playing with her for a while and Oyuna liked her so they brought her back. I think that Friday has had a pretty rough life cause she purrs as soon as I come near her and she is very social. First time Ashley and I took the car to field she snuck in. She behaves almost like a dog, not wanting to be left alone. I have never seen such a natural born killer cat. Not many minutes elapse from the time she hears a rodent until its dead. And there is no playing, she just kills them and eat them. She was very skinny when she came (I think that she is quite young too). I’ve never had a cat before, didn’t really know what to feed her but the only thing I have is sheep, sausage and milk. Plus rodents, but she takes care of that part herself. I would estimate that she has doubled her weight since she came here.

 Friday spends the nights on my sleeping bag, or if it is too cold, in my sleeping bag. That is until she hears a rodent, then the hunt is on. She is actually so good at killing rodents that even Midji likes her. A little at least.

 Together with Friday came a letter from Kim saying that Namshur had said that it was a female and that I should call her Narantsetseg. Kim likes both the word and it’s meaning; sunflower. The name is nice but it’s hard to teach a cat to listen to Narantsetseg (I think). And I wasn’t sure about the female part either cause Namshur thought that Aztai was a female too. He had probably not seen many cats before and when he checked to see which sex it was he didn’t see any penis, hence a female… Well, Kim was taking Aztai’s temperature and when Namshir said female, she looked at his balls thinking “What?” and said, I think it’s a male. No, no Namshur said; it is a female. At this point Kim started thinking “does snow leopards have some special glands that I have missed?” But she persisted and said “it has balls”. After some confusion we could all agree that Aztai was in fact a male.

 Considering that Namshur missed the balls on a 37 kg snow leopard I wasn’t sure that Friday really was a female but a cat expert told me that three-coloured cats are always females. So she is a female.  

 One night when Kim was up Signal Mountain I heard some commotion up at Midji and Oyuna’s ger. They had a little long-eared hedgehog there. We put it in a box so Kim could see it, she had been talking about hedgehogs since she came to camp. Somehow, the hedgehog ended up in a big cardboard box and we kept it for a couple of days. Kim named it Narantsetseg. We fed it with cheese and gave it water. Fun to see the little thing drink cause they have such long noses that it’s really hard for them not to dip the nose when they drink. Anyways, we caught crickets and grasshoppers for Narantsetseg and I must say that it was a natural born killer hedgehog. “Smack” and the grasshopper was dead.

 We let the hedgehog go after two or three days but a couple of days later we found a new one outside the kitchen. We put it in the box, Kim named it Narantsetseg and we gave it food and water.

 Some of you probably think it’s the same hedgehog but Narantsetseg differed a lot in its behavior from Narantsetseg. The second hedgehog was very bad at killing grasshoppers and much friendlier towards us. When we had breakfast, the hedgehog would sit in a lap and eat cheese and sheep fat, when it was full it crawled inside the jacket and went to sleep. It was also a lot hungrier than the first hedgehog; as soon as it saw a hand it figured that it was food. The little rascal actually bit my index finger and held on to it, even as I lifted the hand up it held on to the finger, hanging in the air. We kept Narantsetseg for maybe five days before we let her go.

 Couple of days later Kim found a third hedgehog, she gave it water, named it…  Yup, you guessed right. We didn’t keep this one though.

 One of Oyuna’s brothers came here with his family on a motorbike (his wife and two kids) and behind them were two dogs running. I walked past one of the dogs and it tried to get contact so I petted it for a while, gave it water and a piece of bread. She didn’t dare to drink the water until I moved away a bit. Every time I came near the dog I petted her and I taught her “Sit” and “lie down” in less than five minutes (with the aid of a little bread). Kim says that the dogs here don’t know any commands, this one seemed to learn almost too fast but maybe it was the food. When the brother left the camp the dog stayed. I asked Namshur if we got the dog or why it was in the camp. He grabbed to fist-sized rocks and aimed at the dog… 

 This upset me a little and I explained to him that there will be no beating or rock throwing of any animals in camp. The dog stayed for two days but when we were in field I reckon they drove it home cause when we came back it was gone. Well, I can’t really keep it. I will go home once in a while and I can’t bring a dog.

 The herders do not keep animals that do not contribute somehow. It’s a very different view of pets or livestock than the one we have back home, people here see animals more like tools. I know that some people think that I spoiled my Giant Schnauzer the last year but I think that I am quite fair to animals. I’m not mean to them but I do not tolerate bad behaviour. Ok, ok, Tinni might have slept in the bed in the mornings if I had a sleep-in but it only happened a few times.

 Well, all our staff has understood that we will be nice to animals in the future (though, I am a bit afraid that this rule only applies when I am around). A couple of days ago Ashley and I had a cup of tea at the patio and we saw Friday coming out of Midji and Oyuna’s ger and positioning herself for a “visit to the toilet” just three meters from the front door, when Midji came out he saw the cat and pulled his right foot back to give her a good old soccer kick but in the middle of the kick he realized we were watching and stopped himself. 

Except for the hamsters and jerboas (okenrattor in Swedish) that hang out in the gers at night, that is all our previous and present pets.

 This place is very quiet. We are living in a very harsh place but the few animals that exist do not make much noise. We see ibex (stenbock in Swedish. I will write the Swedish names for the animals in parenthesis) quite often. Right now, there seems to be many ibex around but it’s almost as if they move away sometimes. We think that it has to do with where they can find water. There are Argali sheep (ingen aning in Swedish) in the mountain range just north of us but I haven’t seen any. We also have wolf, red fox hares and some rodents. The funniest being a jumping mouse. It looks like a miniature kangaroo, you can see them when it’s dark.  

 And then there are snow leopards obviously. I haven’t written anything about them in a while, mainly because not much has happened. Both our collared leopards are about 20 km away; the last un-collared leopard that we took pictures of is Bummer. Most likely Bummer is the cat that stepped in two snares that didn’t close in (just after Tom and the others left camp) and that we also photographed at Lower Camp Canyon when he climbed over our funneling rocks. Bummer is his working name. If we catch it, we will re-name it.

 This is not a great place for seeing mammals but it’s a birders paradise. We see Lammergeier (Lammgam tror jag in Swed.), black vultures, golden eagles, falcons, buzzards and owls almost daily. I don’t know much about birds, I usually classify them as “ducks” and “non-ducks”. If a bird looks tasty, it’s a duck, if it doesn’t, it’s a non-duck.  

 The only ducks I’ve seen so far are chuckers (desert duck). They are big as ptarmigans (ripa) move around in big flocks and are not afraid of us. Besides that they make a sound that very much sounds like “tan-do-rii” (with a little imagination). I would so much like to cook some “chucker Tandorii” as a change from all the sheep but I haven’t figured out how to obtain the ingredients yet, especially the main ingredient; the chucker…  

We don’t have any bird book in camp but as soon as I get one, I will tell you what it is that we see. There is a possibility that we have tartar falcon here (I’ve seen a huge falcon) but I only know that they are big. I will get back to you with the duck info…