I never expected it to happen in my lifetime. How many folks do you know who’ve seen a snow leopard, one of the most elusive big cats on the planet? Not to mention endangered. I’ve watched documentaries about them on TV, both on BBC Earth and Love Nature, my favourite channels. Showing rare footage captured high in rocky, mountainous terrain somewhere in Asia, so I know a little bit about them. But never dreamed, never imagined I might see one with my own eyes.
Tumen, our birding guide in Mongolia, had mentioned in an email before our adventure began that he’d been off tracking snow leopards, but I didn’t pay much attention. My target was birds, my greatest wish to see a demoiselle crane, the 14th species of that family for my life list, leaving one more to go before I’ve seen them all. Demoiselles are supposedly common in Mongolia. Other than that I didn’t know what to expect.
So having Tumen’s wife, Oyuna, our translator, announce one morning that we were heading to a possible snow leopard site came as a surprise. As did crossing a wide valley toward a mountain range to find a van and driver waiting in splendid isolation. Waiting for us. We nine Canadians, and Tumen, climbed aboard—I sat in the rear cargo space on a small plastic stool, hanging on to the seat backs—and made our bumpy way far up a ravine to the foot of a towering cliff. Where high above us, from a cave in the rock face, a big, beautiful cat was staring down at us.
“Snow leopard,” Tumen murmured, motioning for us to be quiet. But despite our numbers, and obvious excitement, the animal didn’t bat an eyelash. Just lay there in regal splendor, awake and watchful.
To me it looked like a tiger, but with spots, not stripes. Larger than I had expected, and more tan—Gobi desert colour—than grey ones I’d seen on TV. Apparently snow leopard colours vary quite a bit, matching their background. It took me a while, gazing through my 16-power binoculars, to determine that splotched fur visible way off to one side of the cave was part of its long tail, not a second animal. A male? Resting in a cave where a female had raised kits the year before? I think that’s the story.
I happen to love cats, having grown up with yearly litters of kitties raised in the barn behind our house. We’d each get to name one, my siblings and I, and then take on the chore of scraping food scraps into their bowls outside the kitchen door after dinner. Who ever heard of buying cat food back in the day?
The great feline staring down from on high was much more majestic than the kittens we played with, and petted to make them purr. I would have loved to stroke his plush, furry head until he closed his eyes, relaxed and started that deep, throaty breathing. Do snow leopards purr?
We saw many other mammals in Mongolia—gazelles, ibex, grey wolves, red deer. Picas, gerbils and ground squirrels. We watched a corsac fox chase a marmot as large as it was, only to have the marmot turn around and chase it back, before diving into its hole. Przewalski’s wild horses, Mongolia’s native “takhi,” seem to be thriving in Hustai National Park, where they’ve been reintroduced from populations tended in zoos around the world. We came across several family groups as we scanned for Daurian partridges in the mountaintops.
One touching incident for many of us was witnessing a momma yak cross a grassy slope far below, to collect her newborn and lead it to the herd. I’ll never forget the sight of that tiny calf trotting on wobbly legs behind its mother, connected by a strong, invisible bond.
How absolutely gorgeous!
Just started following you, Magee! Had a great time in western Canada this year but missed seeing you.