Sardinia is not only the most beautiful sea in the world — though it is also that. The interior, the part most people never reach, has a richness and a density of beauty that has no equal: golden hills of dry grass rolling one into the next, rising and falling, showing and hiding the horizon with each curve of the road. We were driving toward Bosa, on the west coast, and I knew this was the right area to see griffon vultures — but the road kept climbing and dropping through those golden hills, and I had not seen a single one, not even high up, or at least had not recognised one. I had given up hope.
And then, past a curve, the landscape handed me something I thought you could only see on an African plain, not in Italy. Not griffons circling high overhead, but a group of them on the ground, cleaning the carcass of a sheep. They were closer than I had hoped to see them, more numerous than I had hoped, larger than I had believed, more vulture than I had imagined. In a moment, after the frenzy around the dead sheep, there was nothing left but bones — left for other raptors waiting their turn. And when the meal was finished, they flew off one after another, immense, climbing impossibly high.
They were closer than I had hoped, more numerous than I had hoped, larger than I had believed — more vulture than I had imagined.
◦Bosa · griffon vultures at a carcass in the golden interior
We stayed and talked with a shepherd, the owner of the dead sheep, who told us about living alongside the griffons — their behaviour with the carcasses of the sheep that die, for one reason or another, across his land. There was no resentment in it. The vulture takes the dead animal he would otherwise have to dispose of himself; the arrangement is old, and it works. What struck me, standing there, was the simple fact of where I was: Sardinia, Italy, Europe. We are not so far from Africa and its biodiversity as we like to think. When we give nature the opportunity to come back, it reminds us how rich it can be — even in its largest inhabitants, the ones we had assumed were gone for good.
◦Bosa · nothing left but bone, and another raptor waiting its turn◦Sardinia · the granite coast near Bosa at the end of the day◦Sardinia · the water along the coast, turquoise over pale granite
