The Iberian Lynx - Days of Waiting and a Young Lynx Playing with Its Prey

Late September 2023: In central Spain, the landscape glowed under the blazing sun, with temperatures around 32°C making the ground shimmer. Cork oaks, wide fields, and barren hills formed a picture both harsh and full of life. Here, among scorched grasses and lonely country roads, lives one of Europe’s rarest wild cats—the Iberian lynx.

For centuries it was on the brink of extinction, its numbers falling dramatically. In the early 2000s, scarcely more than 100 animals remained in Spain and Portugal. By 2023, the species was still considered highly endangered and clearly listed on the Red List. Today, thanks to protection programs, reintroduction projects, and consistent habitat management, the population has recovered: more than 2,000 animals now live again on the Iberian Peninsula, and the trend is rising. Since 2024, the Iberian lynx is no longer classified as “critically endangered,” but as “endangered.” A success story—and at the same time a reminder of how fragile nature remains (IUCN, 2024).

Spain’s wilderness is also home to majestic golden eagles, circling over gorges and mountains. Their sight is rare but unmistakable—powerful wings gliding on the thermals, kings of the sky drifting over the steppe. And where carrion lies, vultures appear in great flocks, vital for the balance of the ecosystem, even though they did not show themselves at this stage of my journey.

Spain is thus a land of contrasts: scorching heat and silent valleys, endangered species and fragile hope. Above all, it is a place where patience is the only currency—and where animal life always shifts between invisibility and sudden, overwhelming encounters.

The last morning in Spain began quietly. Coolness still lingered over the land, the sun barely above the horizon. The light was soft, golden, with the clarity that only early hours bring. In front of my hide lay a meadow of flowers—a place where I had expected idyllic images: a lynx in the grass, framed by blossoms.

But reality took a different turn. Out of the bushes stepped a lynx mother, closely followed by her nearly full-grown young male. After days of waiting, when nothing had happened, the air was heavy with fatigue and anticipation—and then suddenly: movement.

The mother stopped, lifted her head, and at the paws of the young lynx landed a rabbit. Alive, struggling—meant for learning. The young male hesitated only briefly. Then he began to handle his prey—not playfully, as it might have seemed, but with instinctive purpose. He tossed the rabbit into the air, caught it again, threw it once more, balanced it between his paws. Every leap, every move was training for survival.

Before my eyes, a scene unfolded that felt timeless. The flower meadow, the soft morning light, the golden fur of the lynx—it was as if an old painting had come to life. Raw, intense, full of power. Minutes passed in a rush. My camera grew heavy in my hands, but adrenaline carried me through. Every click was an attempt to capture the unrepeatable.

The mother sat at the edge, calm, watchful, almost serene. She had fulfilled her task: to give her young one a lesson for life. And he learned. In that moment, everything condensed into one truth: wilderness is not romance, but hardship, care, and survival.

Those who document wilderness do not witness only beauty. Such moments are also confrontations with the harshness of life. Watching the death of a rabbit is hard. Every instinct says: look away. Yet this is the truth: a predator survives only by hunting.

For the young lynx, this rabbit was no toy. It was practice, an exercise that will one day decide whether he can make enough kills to live. The mother gave him the chance to strengthen instinctive behaviors—movements that may determine his future.

Scenes like this reveal that nature is not a place for human projections. We tend to divide prey and predator into “innocent” and “cruel.” But nature knows no such words. It works in cycles: life begins, passes away, and makes new life possible.

Without predators, balance collapses. Where they are absent, prey animals multiply unchecked, habitats deteriorate, plants vanish, entire ecosystems fall apart. The pain of a single moment is part of the order that sustains life.

For me, wildlife photography also means enduring exactly this. Not looking away, not showing only gentle images, but the whole truth: that survival demands sacrifice. It is an attitude that shapes my work again and again—a respect for life in all its facets.

At the end of these days in Spain, it is not the hours of heat, waiting, or frustration that stay with me. What endures is that one morning: a young lynx honing his instincts in the golden light. An image where beauty, hardship, and survival are inseparably intertwined.

For me, it is confirmation of what guides my work: patience, authenticity, and presence. Wilderness cannot be staged. It is raw, unpredictable, and real. My task is to tell it as it is—without embellishment, without judgment, with respect for every living being.

That single moment in Spain showed me how closely joy and pain, hope and hardship lie side by side in nature. And that it is precisely there that its truth resides.