It is not easy to describe in a few lines the sensations and many episodes of photographic, human and nature events that accompanied me in the last 30 years. The intensity of these sensations, and how they have lasted over time, would deserve a book of their own. The subjects of this story are the Short-toed Eagles (Circaetus gallicus), large diurnal raptors that feed almost entirely on snakes, and which reach our latitudes in very early Spring, to start their breeding cycle.
This adventure started on a miserable February day in the late '70s as I was driving along a road in the Tolfa hills, just north of Rome, together with my friend Paul Harris, a keen ornithologist and photographer like myself. Two enthusiastic twenty-year-olds with their entire life ahead of them, to be lived and discovered...
The two Short-toed Eagles suddenly appeared from behind a bend, circling widely and high up in the dark sky, their bright white plumage shining in contrast with the rain-laden clouds. We were both struck by that first encounter with this beautiful bird, and after some excitement (these were our first Short-toed Eagles ever), we were soon determined to try and find this pair's nesting area. It took two entire seasons of tracking and endless observations to finally pin down the nesting site of these eagles, the female of which has a wing-span of nearly two metres! The site was near the peak of a steep hill that was densely covered by almost impenetrable vegetation. The nest platform was built with dead branches and constructed high up in a tall holm-oak. I still recall the shivers that ran down my back when, after having clambered up the tree, I was finally able to peer into the nest, and thus found myself face-to-face with a small white eaglet which stared at me with its huge penetrating yellow eyes.
A new love was born! Since then, every spring we've searched for, and usually found, the nest of this pair of Short-toed Eagles. When possible, we photograph it, otherwise we observe its spectacular nesting cycle at a distance. Their life cycle, entwined with our own lives, repeated itself year after year.
We spent several days alone in the wild habitat of these arid hills, hiding and merging, as animals among animals. Sharpening our senses, to see without being seen.... like predators; camouflaging ourselves for hours on end among the vegetation, like prey, when the silence is broken only by the wind blowing through the branches... ourselves becoming branches and wind, all as one. These yearly expeditions have strengthened us, in body and in soul. The long waits in the heat and solitude have taught us to be patient, to time our activity to the sun's cycle, to endure physical discomfort such as cramps, annoying insects, thirst - but, above all, we learnt to be at ease with ourselves.
In all this time generations of Short-toed Eagles have succeeded each other on this hill, and many unusual, unique and unforeseen episodes have accumulated in our memories. The memories gradually wane away as time slowly progresses but they, the Short-toed Eagles, and us, Paul and I, are always there on that hill, every spring, to renew a traditional meeting, to continue the path that we started thirty years ago.
