GET REAL

The Pyre­nean chamois an­te­lope (Rup­i­capra pyre­naica) made me slam on my brakes. It cleared the ditch with ease and trot­ted across the tar­mac be­fore pro­pelling it­self ma­jes­ti­cally over the crash bar­rier and down the steep slope on the left to­wards the river dam.

I was on a back lane weav­ing through the rugged Pri­o­rat ter­rain and hill­top vil­lages to go to work at the olive mill – yes, the Pri­o­rat, in the toe of Cat­alo­nia, some dis­tance south of the chamois’ nor­mal Pyre­nean habi­tat. There was no mis­tak­ing. The two horns dis­tinc­tively curled back and splayed. The won­drous tan crea­ture with dark stripes run­ning down ei­ther side of its face be­tween eyes and mouth was just a few me­tres in front of me.

Noth­ing is con­stant. We es­tab­lish ranges, habi­tats and mi­gra­tions of wild crea­tures then they evolve or di­min­ish. Every­thing is fluid. Take what is now the nightly call of the eagle owl (Bubo bubo). Re­mem­ber when I wrote last year that we had heard and seen our first one here in 22 years? It was on a branch four me­tres from our door. Well now it is close by every dusk and dark hour, high in a pine, fig or wal­nut tree. The call is dis­tinc­tive, and know­ing this vast, fear­less bird that will take a goshawk or fox is nearby adds a lit­tle spice to walk­ing through the olive grove to give the pony her night feed. Oc­ca­sion­ally two will be out there some­where, their song, a deep sin­gle note - “whoa” - bounc­ing back and forth across the val­ley. The rea­sons are now every­where. Rab­bits belt in all di­rec­tions re­gard­less of the hour. One fe­male rab­bit and her de­scen­dants can mul­ti­ply more than a thou­sand times in two years.

This surge in wealth of prey has to have been a draw, too, for the genets which have now moved in, the only mem­ber of the Viver­ri­dae fam­ily found in Eu­rope. A full grown rab­bit might be too big for these noc­tur­nal preda­tors, but a kit, a baby rab­bit, would not.

An­i­mals that breed suc­cess­fully can quickly es­tab­lish new ter­ri­to­ries and na­ture is for­ever ad­just­ing. Liv­ing on the fringe of a vast nat­ural park gives us a rare and en­thralling con­nec­tion.

An­other sound. I can­not be 100 per cent sure... yet. We are used to the upset of farm and vil­lage tom cats fight­ing, scream­ing, but this was dif­fer­ent. It was com­ing from the deep for­est. The hope is we have an es­tab­lished colony of Felis sil­vestris, wild cats. The habi­tat is per­fect, with mas­sive wilder­ness, low human den­sity and, yes, a pro­lif­er­a­tion of rab­bits, their favourite food.

The only other pos­si­bil­ity is lynx, but I think I may just be get­ting well ahead of my­self. Roll on the day they are here. I may have seen one be­fore you read this, a moose and black bear too... in Canada where Mag­gie was born, on a visit to the fam­ily home (and to pro­mote Pri­o­rat olive oil).