Anyone fixated with rewilding as the only model to restore nature to Britain’s denuded uplands would do well to visit Extremadura in Spain. From a spot called Peña Falcón at the heart of this national park, there unfolds an immense oak forest rolling to every horizon.
This landscape may look devoid of people, but every tree has been hand-sculpted (by chainsaw these days) to be flat-topped. In turn, each oak creates wood pasture that accommodates sheep, cattle, pigs, timber, cork and cereals, among others. It is also among the richest wildlife places in western Europe.
The most omnipresent symbols of this natural abundance are vultures. Often, there are scores, sometimes hundreds, floating on thermals at all daylight hours. Two species, griffon and cinereous vultures, have enjoyed decades of increase (2018 census: 2,318 and 1,220 pairs respectively in the region) and may be more secure in Extremadura than any other vultures on Earth.
The most affecting way to encounter them is at a feeding station, where carcasses (albeit insufficient amounts to create any dependence) are laid out pre-dawn near sealed platforms, where visitors can observe them on the most intimate terms. The key moment is when the delivery man drives away and triggers an instant materialisation of dinosaur-like creatures with wingspans of almost 3 metres. They land and compress to a seethe, haloed in wing-lifted dust and loose feathers. Momentarily they have the aura of hoofed mammals in stampede, only their central motive is blood and guts.
Vultures are intensely gregarious, highly intelligent creatures with complex social lives, but one loses most of this in the melee of squabbling. Birds bounce up, or bicker and jostle, using feet to assert dominance. Gradually, however, this bone business subsides, the flock loosens, and each bird reacquires a sense of inner silence. Some fall forward on to their bellies like lounging quadrupeds. One of a pair will start to preen its mate.
You too are filled with their sense of calm, but mainly what dawns on you is a feeling of privilege that you could share a sunlit morning with animals so magnificent, and so magnificently other.
• Country Diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary
• The headline of this article was amended on 1 November 2022 to remove an incorrect reference to the project being a rewilding scheme.
