MarcFoggin

Actually it hasn't been misplaced -- I took this photograph by the river going through Zhiduo county town! Perhaps an unusual spotting; but definitely in Qinghai province, China.

According to Jennifer Schultz Nelson (Extension Educator, Horticulture) at http://web.extension.illinois.edu/dmp/pa...

"In world of flower breeding, the color blue is the "Holy Grail" of flower colors. ... The Himalayan Blue Poppy is one of the only true blue flowers in the world. They are native to the Himalayas, where summers are cool and moist. They grow as a woodland plant in well-drained, acidic soil, which keeps the blooms a clear shade of blue. The blue color is provided by the pigment delphinidin, named for being originally isolated from Delphinium. For the delphinidin in the flower to appear blue, the environment inside the plant's cells must be acidic. The soil provides this acid–otherwise the flowers appear pinkish-purple just like many flowers around the world. This "acid factor" is what makes blue such a rare find in the plant kingdom. Not only does a plant have to have the gene to make delphinidin in its flower cells, the plant must be able to maintain a level of acidity within the cell to make the pigment appear blue. Few plants can accomplish this."

A trusted ornithologist-friend has suggested the possibility of it being Godlewski's Bunting ... but the image is too blurry to confirm this.

Why blue?! In certain lighting, they camouflage very well on slate-coloured rock cliffs. Their short, dense coat is slate grey in colour, sometimes with a bluish sheen.

I believe two kinds of vultures may be present together. At least one is a Himalayan vulture (as also suggested by Stian Waaler), which is the most common vulture in Qinghai province; but I believe there are also a couple of cinereous vultures - these are generally much darker than the Himalayan, and they also have bluish base to their beak, which can be clearly observed in a couple of the pictures.

Emily - you can also visit http://www.plateauperspectives.org/colla..., as well as see some additional (small) photographs at http://www.marcfoggin.com/snowleopard/

I've been using camera traps developed by http://www.pixcontroller.com/, which uses a Sony digital camera. I believe the specific model we used for capturing this snow leopard was a 12 Megapixel unit. The area we have been surveying is known locally for its abundant wildlife - and it turns out, from our estimates, that it is a snow leopard 'hotspot' in terms of density. It now is included within one of the core zones of one of the worlds largest nature reserves, yet still with local Tibetan herding communities resident in the area - some members now also serving now as community wardens under a 'co-management' approach. An online article and slideshow describing our project is available on the 'China Dialogue' website at https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/sh...

Agreed!

This wolf was solo. It was an exceptional experience seeing the wolf this close, as I was on one side of my Beijing Jeep and the wolf was not 20m away! The number of wolf sightings has been increasing annually over the time I have been working in the Tibetan plateau region, since the mid '90s.

Great shot of social interactions! As keystone species, it is indeed the most important species on the Tibetan plateau. Please add it to the 'Mammals of Qinghai, China' (http://www.projectnoah.org/missions/6780...) mission, together with any other relevant photograph you upload to Project Noah.