BEARDED VULTURE

There are photographs that are born long before they are taken. Images that are desired for years, until luck and timing finally align—like the focus ring of an old rangefinder camera. Then there are photographs that are born in childhood and remain there, waiting. Waiting to be taken once we grow up—when, for a moment, we become children again, curious about every detail of the world around us. The image on the cover of this podcast was born inside me about thirty years ago, during a car journey from the province of Belluno to Canton Ticino. We were traveling in two Fiat Uno cars. One with Ticino plates, the other from Belluno. My grandfather was driving one, my father the other. The route did not follow the usual path across the Po Valley, but instead cut through the mountains—first the Dolomites, then the sharp peaks of the Grisons in Switzerland. It was a long journey, but one that avoided the post-industrial melancholy of the Lombard plain. From the car window, the dominant color was green—dotted with yellow and white flowers—fading into the dark grey of the peaks and the blue of the sky. During the journey, I moved between cars. Some time with my parents, some with my grandparents. After crossing the Ofenpass—a striking mountain pass with long straight stretches cutting through conifer forests that feel almost Canadian—we arrived in Zernez. There, we stopped to visit the visitor center of the Swiss National Park. Inside, I learned that the park had been established in 1914 and covered 172 square kilometers. Informational panels explained the fauna and flora of the park. Then, during a projection, I saw images of a majestic bird, with an enormous wingspan and a magnetic gaze. That was the day I first encountered the bearded vulture. As often happens, the emotions of childhood fade during adolescence, only to resurface later in life. The imaginative adventures of a child take shape in the passion for wildlife photography. Nights in a tent, long walks in the mountains, waiting, searching—trying to tell the story of the nature that surrounds home. The bearded vulture reappeared in my life a few years ago, in Val Grande, near Vezza d’Oglio. I was with Giuseppe—known as Tom—a fundamental person in my photographic journey. The morning had passed between scanning the landscape with binoculars and sipping wild strawberry liqueur, until a group of deer moved toward us. While we were photographing them in a beautiful alpine pasture dotted with rhododendrons, Tom suddenly looked up. “The bearded vulture—the bearded vulture!” he said, excited. We left the deer to their grazing and turned our attention to the sky. It circled a couple of times, riding the thermals, then disappeared behind the ridge. From that first encounter—just a young bird—I didn’t keep a single photograph. It was flying too high. The images were nothing more than an undefined dot in the sky.

The story of the bearded vulture in the Alps deserves to be told. Because, as with the ibex, humans were responsible both for its extinction and its return. Superstition and ignorance often go hand in hand—and for the bearded vulture, that combination proved fatal. In the 19th century, the naturalist Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert wrote that the bird possessed incredible strength, capable of carrying lambs, goats—even children. This belief, combined with firearms, poisoned baits intended for wolves and foxes, the decline of wild ungulates, and generous rewards for each animal killed, led to the species’ disappearance. In 1913, in the Aosta Valley, the last bearded vulture in Italy was killed. Elsewhere in the Alps, it had already been eradicated. The bearded vulture is a scavenger. Its diet is highly specialized: bones and bone marrow. One of its behaviors is to drop bones from great heights to break them, making them easier to eat. Over time, its evolution led to a loss of predatory traits in favor of scavenging. It plays a fundamental ecological role, cleaning the environment of carcasses. Its flight is elegant, its morphology somewhere between an eagle and a vulture. Adults can reach 110 cm in length, weigh up to 10 kg, and have a wingspan of nearly three meters. There is no visible difference between males and females. Juveniles are dark, almost black, while adults tend toward pale, whitish plumage. So why does the bird in the cover photo appear yellowish? This coloration is not biological. It comes from iron-rich reddish soils where the bird bathes, staining its feathers. The reason for this behavior is still debated. It may be ornamental, or the iron oxide may act as an antibacterial agent, protecting eggs during incubation. Bearded vultures reach sexual maturity at 5–7 years, but usually breed for the first time around age nine. They reproduce every two to three years and form monogamous pairs. After courtship displays in autumn, they build nests in rocky cavities. In February, the female lays two eggs a few days apart. In March, when carcasses are more available after winter, the chicks hatch. Like eagles, they exhibit cainism: the first chick dominates and the second usually dies. Once fledged, the young bird quickly becomes capable of long flights and independent feeding. Each pair requires about 800 grams of food per day—up to 1.5 kg during chick-rearing. This corresponds to around fifty carcasses per year. This explains their vast territory—about 300 square kilometers.

The reintroduction project began in 1986, using a method called “hacking”: captive-born chicks are placed in protected rock niches and raised until they can fly. The success rate is remarkable. Today, the Alpine population counts around 200 individuals. The bearded vulture passed over me two more times before I managed to capture the image I had imagined. Then, finally, I closed the circle—thirty years later—right where it had all begun. It cost me effort. The kind of effort that, if you tell it, people think you’re crazy. But you’re just happy to be living it. 3 a.m. wake-up. Gear ready from the night before. By 3:40 I’m on the road. I drive through the night until the sun rises behind me. At 7, I shoulder my backpack and begin climbing the trail from the Ofen Pass toward Margunet, inside the Swiss National Park. The trail leads beneath one of the first artificial nesting sites of the reintroduction project. I climb above the tree line. The heat rises. I scan the alpine meadows. Ibex rest on the ridge. The rest is silence. I feel that familiar sensation: today might not be the day. I move. I wait. Clouds gather. It begins to rain. “Not today,” I think. Then, in the corner of my eye—a shape above me. Large. Majestic. Silent. Not like the ravens, noisy and sharp. It turns, light and precise. It’s him. The bearded vulture. I frame it. Autofocus hesitates—then locks perfectly. The only sound I hear is my heartbeat, in sync with the shutter. It passes in front of me, at eye level, aligned with the mountains behind, while raindrops hit my head. Exactly as I had imagined. Imagination and pixels merge into the photograph I had been carrying inside me for years. It lasts only a few seconds. But it will stay with me forever. ⸻ I am no longer the child watching a documentary. Now my beard has started to turn white. I’m entering the second half of my life. And yet, in that moment, I felt the same joy I did as a child. ⸻ I send a preview to Michele. He replies shortly after. He’s happy for me—just as I would have been for him. The beauty of a shared passion, without envy. Something rare today. ⸻ The bearded vulture drifts away, crossing the ridge, silent as it came. And my imagination follows it—hoping, one day, to see it again, riding the thermals that rise from the valleys up to the peaks of the Dolomites I call home.