Vol. 1, Issue No. 25 Supplement - 02 April 2000
by Charles F. Wickwire (Trey)
Dad has requested that I send out a quick supplement while he is in the United Kingdom. In keeping with the theme from the last newsletter supplement, I have decided to pass along more information about Kazakstan. This time we will explore nature. The information I have been able to scrounge up has been pretty sketchy and I will not be able to offer much scientific data. Instead I would like to tell you of the plants and animals we see on a daily basis here on the job. Kazakstan is so large that it has several distinct ecosystems. Most prominent is, of course, the steppes. The steppes cover the entire northern and central portion of Kazakstan with mountains to the east and the Caspian Basin to the west.
Tengiz is in the Caspian Basin which is basically a clay desert. The soil is a sandy mix of clay and dirt with a high acid content. For this reason we must use concrete for pylons instead of steel. The telephone poles are also concrete. Wood and steel deteriorate so rapidly they are useless for any construction that has contact with the soil. The plant life here consist of mostly a short sparse grass that is green for a month, give or take, during the spring rains and then becomes the universal tan brown of the steppes. Some larger bush type plants mix in with the grass and can get a couple of feet across. These appear to be in the same family as the tumbleweed. It is a strange thing to be driving down the road and suddenly see a dozen or more tumbleweeds blow across the road. They travel in colonies you see. Entire clans will tumble across the desert at great speeds and have even been known to attack vehicles that cross their path. I myself have seen them sweep over my vehicle, the younger smaller ones parting to flow around the truck while the larger, more bold members of the clan strike the truck and bound several feet into the air to catch the wind. It is very easy to imagine the tumbleweeds as creatures with a purpose and I no longer wonder why the cowboys sing and talk of them so much. Especially after seeing a colony of tumbleweeds picked up by a Dust Devil and sent spiraling through the desert as if on some magical steed.
One thing you don’t see much of is trees. There are a few here and there where man has tried to bring a little shade to the barren steppe. We have a few here in the camp but all of them are small. Every spring there are flowers planted all around the camp. We plant lots of wildflowers and last year we even had some hollyhocks. It is nice to have some color and the fresh smell of flowers after working in a drab and not so fresh smelling gas plant.
Now on to the animals, domestically we have cattle, camels, goats, sheep and horses. We have both the single hump and the double hump variety of camel here. In the winter they grow a shaggy coat of hair and get a bushy clump of it on their heads. It makes them look a little funny after growing up seeing the Saudi version. As well as the domestic horse we have many small herds of wild steppes ponies, descendents of the horses Gengis Khan used to conquer his empire. They are small and have a shaggy coat. Their head is large and has a roman nose making them look a bit like a large Shetland pony. They certainly look sturdy and, truly, they must be to survive in the wild here. Here is a good web site about the Asiatic Wild Horse:
http://www.imh.org/imh/bw/prz.html
I have seen several Steppe Wolves, one ran across the road in front of me and I pulled over to watch him lope away. A bus stopped to watch as well. The wolf stopped on a small ridge about 50 yards away, turned and looked at me and the driver of the bus, his breath misting out in front of him like exhaust from some internal furnace. He looked at us for just a few seconds and then he was gone, disappearing over the ridge like a shadow. When he passed in front of my vehicle I got a pretty good look at him. He was not as large as a timber wolf more like an over sized German Shepherd, about one and a half times as big. His color was a light tan with burnt orange highlights, the color of the steppes. The fur around his shoulder was tipped in black giving it a saddle look. His tail gradually increased in black until the tip was all dark. His tail was very bushy to help protect his feet and nose when he beds down in the cold. His face was longer than a domestic dog and when he looked our way you could see the black and brown highlights on the tan background. His face looked wide because of the fur that swept off to the sides. He seemed very healthy and did not appear to be afraid of the two mechanical beasts that had stopped to admire his passing. The fact that he stopped and acknowledged our presence was an honor in my mind. After all, he is the uncontested master of the steppes. Once he was gone and I began to pull away from the side of the road I looked up and caught the eye of the bus driver. He was an older Kazak man and he smiled and waved to me like we had just shared a secret. And maybe we have, it is rare to see these animals especially in the daylight.
For a long time I wondered what wolves eat here in Kazakstan. We have lots of dogs and cats around the camp and on the job-site and if the wolves were hungry I am sure we would lose a few domestic animals now and then. But all the strays seem to last forever and we see the same ones all the time so the wolves are not supplementing their diet. We have a giant gerbil but he just doesn’t look big enough to keep wolves feed. Then one day I saw it, a monster that was almost a big as the wolves themselves. It was the biggest rabbit I have ever seen in my life. It is really a steppe hare and every bit as big as a cocker spaniel. I almost wrecked my car as a stared, dumbfounded, watching it move off into the desert. He was the universal tan color of the steppe and moved fairly slowly, not worried about much. I can’t see where much would worry a rabbit that size, he was twice as big as the foxes here and the eagles would have a hard time lifting him off the ground. Most people don’t believe me and even I was starting to doubt what I had seen but I have met a couple of other people who have seen them to so if I am going crazy I am not going alone. (One time I saw stripped cows in Illinois and my wife thought I was nuts till I showed her. The breed is called Banded Cow, no really, I’m serious.)
For a folk tale of the wolf, hare and a sheep click the below link:
http://www2.cybercities.com/w/westernyugur/folktale/tale10d.htm
The giant gerbils I mentioned are an interesting creature. I think they are the missing link between gerbils and prairie dogs. They live in colonies like prairie dogs and stick their heads up out of the holes. When you come close you can hear their warning cries to each other. It sounds like a high pitched piping noise. They are smaller than a prairie dogs but much larger than a gerbil. We call them giant gerbils because it sounds better than Pigmy Prairie Dogs. They are the main food source for your medium sized predators, like the fox and eagle.
The foxes I have seen here are your standard foxes, burnt orange with dark highlights. They are very bold though and often live in the Plant itself, making their homes in old pipes and crates. They will let you get close enough get a good look. We also have some of the Artic Fox that turn snow white in the winter. While I have not yet seen one, several people here say they are stunning.
Kazakstan sees a large amount of migratory birds flying north and south from Asia to Africa. Among the mix are swans, flamingos, ducks, wagtails, hoopoes and my favorites, the raptors, or Birds of Prey. The biggest of the raptors here is the Steppes Eagle. They are magnificent creatures with slightly different markings than their cousins the Golden Eagle. I was driving to site one day and I noticed a dead Giant Gerbil in the middle of the road and suddenly from out of no where a tremendous Eagle swooped down landed on the gerbil and then flew away. I was so close I had to brake in order to not hit him when he flew over the hood of my car. His wing span was wider than the car was. Here are some web sites devoted to Golden Eagles:
http://www.peregrinefund.org/press/mongolia.html
http://www.raptor.cvm.umn.edu/raptor/rfacts/golden.html
Another bird of prey we see a lot of is the Harrier. This small to medium size predator can be seen hovering over the steppe, seeming to deify gravity, while looking for it’s dinner. This bird is so good at riding the wind currents that he can appear to remain motionless in mid air for long periods of time and then plummet down to strike and another gerbil bites the dust. The Harrier jet that the US Marine Corps flies is named after this unique bird of prey. To see a picture of the Harrier click the below link:
http://www.nantucketconservation.com/info_files/wildlife/harrier.html
There are several varieties of snakes here and some are quite poisonous. Nothing to inspire horror movies but there is a danger as anti-venom is in short supply and not always close by. The species is a member of the adder family and is the same brown as so many other plants and animals here.
The lizards here are interesting. Imagine a horned toad with long legs and tail, add an orange racing stripe down his sides, make him fast and there you have it, a turbo charged horned toad. I have tried to catch a couple of these guys but they are very fast and people look at you funny when you run around the parking lot stooped over trying to catch a flash of orange.
Mosquitoes here are of standard size and annoyance. They are not near as large as our mosquitoes back home in Louisiana but they can ruin a late evening bar-b-que if you forget your repellant. The Brits and the Aussies both call them Mozzies instead of Skeeters.
One familiar bug here in Kazakstan is the Mole Cricket. These little guys seem to be all over the world. They look like an elongated cricket with an amour plated head. Their front legs are specialized digging machines used to burrow through the ground. They can be quite aggressive and will attack most anything that gets in their way. If you wish to see a picture of these creatures try the below links:
http://www.newsherald.com/archive/features/mc060798.htm
http://www.ifas.ufl.edu/~ENT1/MCRICKET/mcri0001.htm
Now here is the scariest beastie in all of Central Asia, the Middle East and even Africa. It is known by many names, here it is called a Bear Bug, in Saudi Arabia they call them Camel Spiders and in South Africa they are called Sun Spiders. Their scientific name is Solifugid and they are part of the arachnid family. They are closer to scorpions than spiders but since they have no stinging tail they tend to be named after their more distant cousins the spiders.
I will now attempt to describe this creature but I fear my attempt will pail in comparison to the reality of this nightmare that stalks the shadows of the steppes. Imagine a crawling horror with ten legs that connect to a segmented body about 4 inches long. Two of the legs are not legs at all but special limbs that secrete a small bubble of glue like substance that can be used to climb glass or ensnare a hapless victim to be devoured in powerful jaws. The jaws on this beast are the worst part. Imagine two elongated hooks with multible barbs running the length of the inside of each hook. Now imagine two sets of these jagged parodies of a beak, side by side and completely independent. I have watched these powerful jaws work in tandem to spin a grasshopper while moving it back and forth like an ear of corn, complete with crunching noises. They are also very aggressive, attacking anything that gets in the way. It has no fear and will attack a human who is foolish enough to poke at it. To see a picture of this creature hop over to one of these web sites:
http://home.global.co.za/~quagga/solpugid.htm
http://www.ufsia.ac.be/Arachnology/Pages/Solifugae.html
http://www.arachnophiliac.com/burrow/solifugids.htm
Looking out across the steppes it is easy to think of it as a barren lifeless desert but it is far from it. There is life everywhere and you don’t even have to look for it. If you stay in one place long enough it will find you. I have always enjoyed the natural world and exploring the animal kingdom of each new place I visit and Kazakstan certainly has an abundance of new and interesting creatures to see. I am sure more and more of these creatures will make themselves known to us. We will pass along our new experiences with the local wildlife as they occur.
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Rick and Fran Wickwire
Eric Wickwire
Trey, Kim & Elli Wickwire
Pete Wickwire