Our tour begins in the city of Ulaanbaatar. Nearly half of the country’s population resides here In the capital city. We will assemble and spend the night in the hotel. If we have time today or perhaps later in the trip we can do a bit of easy birding along the Tuul River. The lush riparian habitats hold a few species that we won’t see elsewhere so we will try and track down Azure tit, Long-tailed Rosefinch, Azure-winged Magpie and White-crowned Penduline Tit in this area.

This morning we will head eastwards to visit the Gun Galuut Nature Reserve. This wetland area set amongst the vast Mongolian steppe is thriving with birds during the summer period. Our key target here will be the majestic White-naped Crane, a spectacular and vulnerable crane breeding in these remote Asian steppes. We also hope to see Demoiselle Cranes as well. A long list of intriguing waterfowl are to be found here: Bar-headed and Swan Goose, Whooper Swan and most of the Eurasian ducks. Breeding shorebirds will be augmented by migrants from further north at this time of year and possibilities seem nearly endless. We could dream of a rare sighting of Little Curlew or Asian Dowitcher while more likely possibilities include Pied Avocet, Bar-tailed Godwit, Broad-billed and Curlew Sandpiper, Temminck’s, Long-toed and Red-necked Stint, Terek Sandpiper and Spotted Redshank. Additional species could include Citrine Wagtail, Pallas’ Bunting and many more. While the focus today will largely be on birds we can hope that a couple mammal species are out and about preparing for their upcoming hibernations: Tarbagan Marmot and Long-tailed Ground Squirrel! After what should be an incredible introduction to Mongolia we will settle into our Ger camp for our first of 4 nights!

Our next three days will be spent roaming the endless steppe seeking out the incredible Pallas’ Cat. This is one of the most unique looking and hardiest of the wild cats with a wonderfully dense coat. They hunt primarily rodents and while they may be active any time of day or night, it is early mornings and late afternoons that will give us our best shot at finding them. With perseverance and a lot of scanning, we have high hopes of spotting one! Other fantastic mammals in this area include Corsac Fox, Argali Sheep and very cute Mongolian Jirds. Birdlife is relatively sparse but we should see some interesting raptors including Steppe Eagle, Upland Buzzard, Cinereous Vulture and Amur and Saker Falcons along with a few interesting passerines including Mongolian and Asian Short-toed Lark and hopefully Pere David’s Snowfinch. When not looking for mammals, down time along the river near our camp could produce all kinds of migratory passerines.

We will now head to the west of Ulaanbaatar to visit this interesting national park. During our visit here we will aim to see Przewalski’s Horse. Considered to be the last surviving subspecies of Wild Horse, it went extinct in the wild some time in the past century with the species making its last stand in Mongolia until at least the 1960s. A small captive population persisted, albeit with something of a genetic bottleneck and were released back into Mongolia in the 1990s where they are now doing quite well. In addition to these powerful horses, we should also see Altai Wapiti, more closely related to the North American Elk than the Eurasian Red Deer. Mongolian Gazelle are also to be found here and there are Wolf in the park hunting all these ungulates although seeing those would take a great deal of luck! Birding here will be interesting with some new species to be on the lookout for including Daurian Partridge, Isabelline and Pied Wheatear and Meadow Bunting. Again there should be some great raptor watching: Cinereous Vulture, Steppe and Golden Eagle, Upland Buzzard, Eurasian and Lesser Kestrel, and both Amur and Saker Falcon are all possible here!

Today will be a major change of pace as we head back to Ulaanbaatar to catch a flight way out west to Khovd. From there we will head towards our ger camp in the Altais and settle in for a week long stay! This is a truly remote and beautiful area, set in arid country of stark beauty in the foothills of the mighty Altai Mountains.

Our camp is one the premiere places to see the once mythical Snow Leopard. We will have four wheel drive vehicles at our disposal and hikes will generally be of short duration with moderate inclines.  Our chances of a sighting of arguably the world’s ultimate mammal are reasonably high during a week here, but the animals may well be distant. If a leopard is found we will attempt to get as close as possible once everyone has had scope views. In this case, the walking could be quite challenging, and bear in mind that we are still at moderately high elevation.

The main prey of the leopards here is the Siberian Ibex. We should certainly see these along with Tarbagan Marmot and perhaps the cute little Pallas’ Pika.  Bird diversity is rather low but includes the Altai Snowcock (typically involves a hike), Chukar, Lammergeier, Himalayan Griffon, Brown Accentor, Guldenstadt’s Redstart and White-winged Snowfinch. On at least one day we will head into the flatter deserts below camp to seek out the bizarre Saiga and Goitred Gazelle. We try at night for Steppe Polecat and try for various species of gerbils and jerboas. Birding is good here too with chances for the incredible Mongolian Ground Jay and also Pallas’ Sandgrouse, White-headed Duck, Pallas’ Gull and possibly the rare Dalmatian Pelican.  (See Detailed Itinerary for more info).

We will return by air to Ulaanbaatar where the tour will conclude.