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The team flew into Barcelona from Argentina and the US respectively. It was the beginning of February, and the plan was to visit a few other protected areas around Spain, before actually getting to the Lynx conservation projects, in the southern regions of Castilla La Mancha and Andalucía. We had excellent experiences the first few days with our dear friends and guides, Jordi Ruiz Olmo and Toni Batet, who introduced us to incredible projects working with iberian ibex, griffon vulture, bearded vulture, and golden eagle, among others. So when we got to the Peñalajo area after 10 days, emotion had built up.
The plan was to start early before sunrise, and go looking for lynx along with field researchers from CBD Habitat and Iberlince. Both organizations have been involved in this project along with local governments and have increased lynx population numbers tenfold, from fewer than a 100 individuals to at least 1,100. It isn’t uncommon to go back home without having had the slightest hint of a cat, which is generally extremely elusive and shy. Seeing and photographing an endangered and elusive species is a rare combination of effective tracking and pure luck. This day though, was more on the lucky side of things.
We were planning for a full day of just waiting. It was 7 am, and the sun hadn’t come up yet, when we got to the first selected spot. Suddenly, our driver energetically pointed at our 2 o’clock. On our very first day, no more than 15 meters from us, like a hologram, it was right there; sitting next to an olive tree right beside the exact spot we were going to be waiting.He looked at us unsuspiciously and surprisingly relaxed. He even yawned and closed his eyes for a few seconds.
Then he looked around and started moving gracefully towards another cat he sensed nearby, which we were able to see briefly at a distance. The precious golden sunlight came exactly at that magical moment for us to do photography.
