The vulture keeper

by Melissa Silva Medina Weil (Colombia)

Making a local connection Spain

His fingers were scratched and caked in blood. Some of it was his and some of it of the rabbit carcasses he’d been carrying. He smelled like fresh blood that hadn’t began to rot just yet. “So what do you think?” He asked, gesturing towards the glass pane “Wonderful” I murmured, overwhelmed by the view. Hundreds of vultures were hovering around entertained in diverse avian activities such as bathing, preening, flying and eating the food he had provided for them. The vultures had been hungry, some of them hadn’t eaten for weeks, and they had snatched some of the carcasses from his hands. Their necks are like whips they use to tear meat away from the bones, and had not calculated where meat ended and fingers began very accurately. “Does it hurt very much?” I asked. He shrugged. “You get used to it, it’s not on purpose, you know, they haven’t eaten for a long time and they don’t know how strong they are”. He made a pause. “Vultures are stupid” he added as an afterthought. “Brain the size of a pea.” We watched the vultures for a while. They fought for the best pieces of the carcasses and ate. We were able to contemplate their beauty in all its glory. I’d have given anything to be one of them, free to roam the sky and ride the wind. The sun was progressively ascending the sky, because of the noise and the habits of the birds we had to arrive as early as possible, and the clouds looked enticing. A small, skinny, lanky fox came to the clearing running at full speed. Against all I could’ve expected, the vultures flew away and the fox snatched one of the carcasses. He lingered at one of the sides of the clearing and dug a hole where he stored the stolen meat. He repeated the procedure a couple times, with vultures running and yelling every single time he came at them, but invariably moving away from their precious food. I chuckled. He was so small compared to a vulture and he had the courage to run straight at them and win without having to even put up a fight! The vulture keeper told me a bit about his life, how he had sailed all around the world until he had heard of how vultures were dying and had decided to feed them, buying some land and giving them the leftovers of butchers. With time he had been able to build the observatory, as a way of showing the world the tragedy of this misunderstood species and to try to redeem vultures in their eyes. Vultures have been the symbol of corruption and greed for centuries for no real reason. But convincing people that observing them was worth the while had not been easy and some political misadventures were still on his mind. Some of the vultures finished bathing, they had a strict hierarchical order, and once the young ones had had the courage to try the water, the older, more powerful ones had displaced them from the pond. Now they opened their wings to the sun. “You’re very lucky to see them bathing, they only do it when they feel perfectly safe” the vulture keeper said. “They take a long time to dry and are exposed to predators meanwhile.” I felt very lucky indeed, I’d found the vulture sanctuary in a stroke of good luck while meandering around Spain without a plan. Some vultures began flying away, revealing the hidden wind currents. I turned around to the other side of the observatory where I could see them departing towards the horizon. And for a fleeting moment as I saw how the beating of their wings devolved into gliding as they reached the current that would take them to their destination, I felt like the world was just right. It all made sense, as if my whole life had been leading right to this moment, right to this place, right to the vulture keeper. I felt a tear slither down my cheek. I’d come to Spain escaping the world but had instead found it, now I was ready to go back home.