On Wild Cats and Eagles…
The final day of last weeks creative course, ‘Caminos Altos’ saw us walk up to the snow line of the Sierra Gigante. Through the forested north facing slopes of the mountain amongst the Aleppo Pines we followed these rather strange foot prints (left). Like us they were using the camino as good access through the countryside but unlike us they seemed to have a pretty clear row of rather fearsome looking claws across the front of the pads. We suspected a wild cat but could not be sure until we met a local hunter hanging off a precipice in his 4×4 about to fall to his death. Once rescued by our Land Rover he indeed confirmed that it was the print of a wild cat.
Once the hunter (I won’t use his name) was restored to his bar in Vélez Blanco we all returned to Los Gázquez. To our delight we got an ‘up close and personal’ encounter with this eagle (above) which was on the ground, with his rabbit prey, very close to the road. Getting this close allowed us to confirm positively using the Collin’s Birds of Britain and Europe that it was indeed a rare Bonelli’s Eagle.
Casa Joya said,
February 5, 2011 @ 1:21 pm
I have seen many a print in Africa but that is just incredible especially in this part of our world. One would want to say it is the undiscovered species still going though the evolution process dwelling in you neighborhood. Hope that one day you will be able to capture the image of the print’s owner.