Ladakh - In Search of the Snow Leopard

 

Prayer Flags
Disbursing prayers in the wind

The second part of my Ladakh trip was for the Snow Leopard. Their thick white-gray coat, spotted with large rosettes, blends in perfectly with Ladakh’s steep and rocky mountains.  The soft thick pads, the long bushy tail (a natural scarf) all serve a function. This perfect camouflage renders them all but invisible, earning them the name: the “Ghost of the Mountains”.

Blue Sheep (Bharal)

Another Bharal

We paid obeisance to the prayer flags and set out to find the Snow Leopards. We saw a Eurasian Magpie, Woolly Hare and a lone Bharal, at various times during the expedition.

Eurasian Magpie
Found at these altitudes only

Ladakh Urials
A one horned ram stands guards over the herd 

The Blue Sheep (Bharal), Ladakh Urials, and Ibex (too distant to photograph); all put on a show, and what a show it was.  Any one would have been a treat, all three…

Woolly Hare

These are the prey of the Snow Leopard, and it is the reason the Snow Leopards descend from the high mountains. They follow prey.  Humans are not the prey of the Snow Leopard, in fact they have become quite used to humans, coming quite close.

Snow Leopard
The distance at which it was normally seen

We were lucky in that a Red Fox, decided that the Snow Leopard’s kill was a tasty meal.  In order to protect its kill, the Snow Leopard stalked the fox and chased it away. This is the closest I have seen a Snow Leopard.

The Snow Leopard chasing the Red Fox away
The fox is in a quandary, one one side is the Snow Leopard
and on the other is us humans

Snow Leopard...

...stalks the Red Fox

The same Snow Leopard which came close

I wonder if our children, or their children will see the Snow Leopard, or will it become a historical myth?