Gobi: Life and death

Skull of a dead goat. The Gobi desert is full of animals bones.

I've spent 6 days in the Gobi desert in the south of Mongolia. It's a place of all the extremes. Temperatures can have 80 degrees of difference, from -40°C to +40°C. It can be completely dry for months then heavy rain can occur, rivers forms and huge floods cover the plains. It's a desert but it's not completely dead. It's full of plants and animals, but life there is harsh. Food and water is scarce. Climate is extreme. Hiding from predators is hard on those huge flat plain. The Gobi is a fascinating place.
We were lucky to spot a lot of wild life: a corsac fox, some gazelles, lizards, but the most impressive was to witness a golden eagle hunting down a young gazelle. It was a bloody fight for life.

Butterfly chrysalis.

It was raining during summer, so part of the desert was green and full of flowers. The pink flowers are wild onions.


Goat with her newborn baby. It was beginning of September and our guide said the baby would surely not survive winter. Goat's usually give birth in spring to leave enough time to the baby to grow and get fat.


Tree in a dried out river bed.

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