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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jos Stratford" data-source="post: 1284196" data-attributes="member: 12449">Day One - 22 AugustWoke pre-dawn, which suited me just fine - cackling Scrub Jays scoulding at this new arrival, Coyotes howling a most delightful dawn chorus. Birds were flitting back and fro, but I need a little more light, so quickly jumped in the car and drove a mile further up the road. Pulled in under a big tree to a deep hoo-hoo of a Great Horned Owl, now that would be a fine bird to start the trip off I thought, so I carefully circled the tree and gazed up in all directions, couldn't see a thing! Ten minutes later, the honours of first bird seen fell to Hairy Woodpecker, quite acceptable as a start. Soon added Bewick's Wren, Scrub Jays flying off in every direction, the first Dark-eyed Juncos (the species to become one of the most common everywhere!) and Californian Towhees, a most exotic sounding name, but rather quiet unassuming bird! Birding had started, the sun was rising and I decided upon a hike - pure brilliance, everything new or nearly so, the first Black Phoebes were as welcome as the abundant Steller's Jays, and then I found a bird of right character, or rather a dozen or so of them ...Acorn Woodpeckers, what little stars, more like babblers than woodpeckers, these things were fabulous, noisy gangs of them roving the hillsides and not in the least bit timid, did enjoy them. As the sun climbed, already it was about 30 C by 8 a.m., out came the swifts to play - hurtling past, rather stunning White-throated Swifts, a dozen of them, did enjoy them too. Then a pair of Californian Thrashers, then a zoom-by hummingbird that could have been any species in the world for all I saw. Hike over, I retired to my car and settled down to take my first few photographs, snapping both the Steller's and Scrub Jays, plus my buddies the Acorn Woodpeckers.Read one information board, that gave name to the high peaks that towered above me - Condor Crags they were called, named in the Old Days when Californian Condors used to roost there. Ah, I dreamed how nice it would be to see them above such majestic andscapes, but the reality was, I believed, the birds were long gone. With the population dwindling to a mere couple of dozen birds, or thereabouts, in the 1980s, conservationists saw the imminent extinction of this mighty giant, so took the drastic, but necessary step of capturing all the remaining birds and taking them into captivity, thereby deeming the bird extinct in the wild. Captive breeding followed, highly successful, and (my knowledge of dates is all highly hazy) a decade or so back the first birds were re-realeased back into the wild. My dream was to see some of these birds, now breeding and doing well, but not at Pinnacles, but either on the Pacific coast or way further south, both places I thought would need some luck.So there I was dreaming about Condors, when two almighty birds swung out over the ridge, massive birds that could only have been one thing, and they were ..two Californian Condors! I was astonished! Over the valley they cruised, two midget (by comparison) Turkey Vultures in their wake. Blimey I thought, what luck and I sat down to have a peanut butter sandwich. Then I jumped up again, three more Californian Condors appeared over the crags!!! There they circled, two mobbing each other, and giving views I could only have prayed for ...and then one landed on a boulder way up on the side of the mountain, a good kilometre off and much higher than me. There it sat and did nothing, there I sat and watched, and longer there it sat and did nothing, then a bright idea bounced into my small skull - leg it up the opposite side of the mountain, creep round the ridge and hopefully I would be at the same height and maybe get a few distant shots. All very good, but the temperature was now 35 C, the mountainside was pure scree and scrub and that fantastic idea almost killed me! Got up there in record time, water pouring from my brow and my legs wondering what they had just been subjected to. Crept round, peeping over boulders here and there, then saw a feast for the eyes, the Condor was still sitting there and just a mere few boulders away. I sat a while till my breathing returned till near normal, then clicked away to get the shots I wanted. Wonderful. Flight pictures would be nice too, presuming he was actually going to take to the air again that day, but my position was useless for that, I needed to be lower, so when he launched, over my head he would go. Twenty minutes later, I was I was sat peering up, waiting ...and wait I did, the bugger made me sit there half the morning in a scorching sun as American Kestrels and Turkey Vultures wheeled about. A shuffle of position from the bird, then (okay I exaggerate) the skies darkened as wings opened and the Condor stepped off the boulder, soaring directly over, awe-inspiring. Four or five times round he swooped, then over the ridge and gone, the first magical moment of the trip over ...and it was not even mid-morning on the first day!</blockquote>

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