Ger Life

Ger Life

Asia » Mongolia » Dornogovi
July 26th 2017

Published: August 13th 2017

After having such an amazing time working on a volcano in Nicaragua last year I thought I’d check out what other expeditions were on offer from the same volunteer charity, Earthwatch. After a perusal of all the exciting locations I decided I fancied a trip to the wilds of Mongolia, well why not. What did I know about Mongolia? Not a lot, mostly Genghis Khan (actually it’s Chinggis), horses an... Read Full Entry

Photos are below

Photos: 96, Displayed: 21

Inside our ger, don't walk through the posts!

Who needs corners.

Ah look, they named a Ger after me!

What's that coming over the hill?

Is it a pony? Is if a pony?

The Russian Van

Sadly due to boring health and safety, we volunteers were not allowed in the Russian van (no seat belts), it looked loads of fun though.

Even the loos have wildlife

Finches nesting on the toilet light generator, you get to say hello every time you wash your hands.

The land of the blue sky

Batton down the gers

A dust storm approaches.

On a small mammal hunt

6am and it was time to check the Sherman traps for small mammals. If you found one in your trap you upend it ready to take its vital statistics.

We've got one!

The first capture of the day gets weighed, what can it be?

It's a Jerboa!

No, I'd never heard of them either. They look like very small kangaroos though. This might be a Siberian Jerboa (Allactaga sibirica), but don't quote me on that.

Hold on, that's not a small mammal.

This pretty boy is a Toad-headed Agama or 'Phrynocephalus versicolor' if you want to pretend you are David Attenborough.

Look at me, I am so cute!!

I think this cutie is a Mongolian Hamster (Allocricetulus curtatus). Although could have been a Striped or Long Tailed one, it's clearly enjoying its contribution to furthering scientific research.

That's a whopper!

A vulture's nest, look how big they are, humongous!

Gotcha!

A young Saker Falcon (Falco cherrug) is caught for tagging.

The Saker Falcon does not look amused.

Don't worry, no falcons were harmed in the making of this blog.

And now for the science bit

The falcons are measured then tagged to help prevent people poaching them, important work.

Falcon rock

I liked the fact the rock where the falcons were nesting looks like a bird. After a few days in the reserve all the rocks start to look like something...

Another discovery

We stumbled across a grave while out falcon tagging, one for the archeologists.

Mongolian Boot Camp Exercise #1: Falcon chasing

If you look carefully you can see the students running after the falcon chicks to try and catch them for tagging, we supervised from the comfort of the air conditioned 4x4.

Holy hole

Apparently Buddhist monks hid here when the Soviets came, they didn't like the monks.

29th August 2017

D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley

Volunteering again
Good for you for picking some great locations. Mongolia is on my short list so I truly enjoyed reading this one. Great stuff. Will continue to follow along. MJ

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