The drive to Yolyn Am was adventurous (steep trails and river crossing in the gorge) and one of the highlights was the 17 lamb vultures we saw. Now, 17 has a special meaning to me, not because one is a prime number nor because the name of the game blackjack is “17 and 4” in German. It's a story by one of my favorite poets, Arno Schmidt, who wrote a radio feature about James Fenimore Cooper that he called 'Seventeen is too many! James Fenimore Cooper' [1]. His main work “Zettel's Traum” also corresponds to 17 novels, at least that's how he saw it himself [2].
The pictures were taken at Yolyn Am (Ёлын Ам). It is the name of the gorge an comes from the Mongolian yol (ёл) or even better yol ooch (оoч ёл), which is translated as bearded vulture or lammergeier (correctly spelled in German: Lämmergeier). I've already written about this valley concerning the yak or sarlag (сарлаг) [3]. Being part of the Mongolian gobi it should be arid, but has the advantage of a small river running through the valley, which we had crossed at the entrance of the valley. It is fed by an ice field, which until recently wasn't exhausted during summer and lasted until the new snow. Besides the lammergeier one may also see the xar tas (хар тас) or black vulture (German: Mönchsgeier). I wouldn't dare to differentiate the two. More on the bearded vulture at Wikipedia [4].
Links and Annotations:
[1] Arno Schmidt: „Siebzehn sind zuviel! James Fenimore Cooper“, in: Arno Schmidt: Nachrichten von Büchern und Menschen 1. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1971. ISBN: 3-436-01336-6. P. 203-223.
[2] „Ich habe es nicht gern gesehen, daß mein Mann ›Zettels Traum‹ schrieb. Alfred Andersch sagte einmal: ein Buch schreiben, das ist Mord. Was sagte AS, wie vielen Büchern rein umfangmäßig ›Zettels Traum‹ entsprach. 17? Und um wievielfach größer sagte er, daß die Schwierigkeit war, dieses eine große Buch zu schreiben als 17 Romane?“ [Translation: „I didn't like it when my husband wrote 'Zettels Traum'. Alfred Andersch once said: writing a book is murder. What did AS say, how many books did ›Zettels Traum‹ correspond to in terms of volume? 17? And how much more difficult, did he say, has been writing that one big book than 17 novels?”] Cited according to: Giesbert Damaschke: Der Fremdkörper. Fragmentarische Spekulationen zur Typoskriptform der späten Werke Arno Schmidts. Vortrag, gehalten auf der GASL-Tagung 2000 in Lilienthal; gedruckt in Zettelkasten 20 (Jahrbuch der GASL 2001). München 2005–2022. https://www.asml.de/artikel/fremd.php
[3] https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2022/08/mongolia-looking-at-yaks.html
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bearded_vulture
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