We meet with Spiros at his house in a village near Heraklion. We leave our car there and go on our trip in his pickup truck. We will go to inaccessible regions of the Asterousia mountains.
Feeding stations are located as far as possible from places frequented by people. Vultures can eat once every 2 - 3 weeks. However, Spiros delivers food to them once a week.
An hour later I'm standing in the corridor of the slaughterhouse. The stench of animal fear makes my hands shake.
- Do you eat meat? - Spiros asks.
- No, we have been vegetarians for 8 years.
- That's good. If you were eating, you would stop after one visit. It's closed today, but sometimes I'm here on working days. The screaming is unbearable.
But you endure, I say.
-Yes. But I know why I'm here. I know why am I doing this. You'd get used to it too, if you had a good reason. - he replies seriously.
I force myself to enter the corridor.
Spiros packs pig heads into a pickup truck. I think it's probably too drastic to show, but after a while I decide it's actually for the best. Anonymous shapeless meat is comfortable, and it has a face. It reminds us that it was someone's body.
Today, apart from one goat, there are only pigs. That's because the holidays are coming. Traditionally, Greeks then eat pork. Lots of pork. Spiros doesn't have enough sacks today. He didn't expect this amount. The last snouts land directly on the back. They look very moving. We go with them on their last journey to the mountains.
The research and feeding station we are going to is located on one of the highest peaks of Asterousi. Crowded into a pickup truck, we drive along a narrow gravel road winding over precipices. The landscape of raw brown and beige and sharp desert gravel suddenly turns into the cold gray of rocks and a pine forest drowning in fog. You can finally open the windows that protected us from the dust clouds. Now the cool smell of pine needles and fog flows into the car.
They won't see us today, says Spiros.
When Spiros goes up on the mountain , they recognize him. They usually wait for him on a rock. When they see a car, they start flying over it, all the way to the feeding place.
They circle above his car as he climbs the gravel road in his 4x4. Sometimes there are over a hundred of them. Today we are invisible.
We reach the gate. Spiros opens the padlock and we go inside. The landscape reminds me of photos of Machu Picchu. The rugged stone peak of the mountain sticks out from the mists. When the weather is nice, you can see the Libyan Sea under the sky.
Spiros scatters pig heads among the remains of goat hooves from previous feedings. I feel transported to the world of the land of dragons. I look at the pig faces falling in the fog. Maybe it's good that they are not just pieces of meat, then it is so easy to forget that they were once alive.
Spiros installs cameras on the branches around the feeding ground, and then we leave the feeding station area for the observation base, which is located several hundred meters away.
A small stone house on the edge of the precipice has windows on different sides, allowing you to watch birds flying from afar. It's just that it's foggy today. The view is majestic. I feel like we're sitting on a cloud.
But we don't see the feeding station, we don't see the vultures. Have they seen us? Do they even know the food has arrived?
We sit in silence. Several minutes pass when suddenly barking sounds can be heard in the fog and echo through the mountains. They came, Spiros whispers. The barking that reminds me of the raptors from Jurasik Park is getting more and more intense. These birds are very loud. Hidden in the fog, they fight each other for food. Their screams echo across the rocks.
Do you think I could come over there? - Tomek asks - Hide between the trees? Can they do something to me?
Vultures don't attack. They simply won't come, or they will run away and won't come back for a long time. - explains Spiros.
To be able to be near the feeding site, you would have to leave the tent there for a month so that they get used to it, and then maybe try to hide inside so that you can take photos up close. Maybe.
We listen to bird cries. The fog, blown away by a light wind, reveals a piece of the slope along which two vultures are squabbling around a pig's face. Spiros aims his rifle-long lens at the sky through the window and photographs a bird flying by.
Tomek moves silently towards the feeding ground to see how close the birds will allow him to get. From our perspective, it gets quite close, although it knows that it cannot get closer to the station itself. The birds pay no attention to him. Tomek films people - I laugh to Spiros - he has such energy that even though he is visible to outsiders, he disappears. It's his talent.
After about an hour, when the birds finish their meal, we return to the feeding ground to collect the cameras. The fog is diluting a bit. Standing among the remains, we see birds sitting on a rock in the distance. We're on our way back.
Back in the office, Spiros copies the photos from the camera he placed in the tree. In fact, some birds have numbers. These are those marked by the Museum. Saved.
All birds are kept in huge cages during treatment.
These cages are built so that the birds can spread their wings and maintain their strength until they are able to face the wild again when it is time for them to return to it. Sometimes they are treated for a year, Spiros tells us.
The actions of releasing vultures into the wild after they return from the hospital are a beautiful spectacle.
We will be releasing some birds soon. - says Spiros.
I hope we will be there to see it.