Hi Notes

Notes from 9/1/03: Picked up 7 birds, total. Here are just the
highlights: The most noteable was AC9. As most of you know, he is the
legendary bird who was the last wild Condor to be taken into
captivity in the 1980s. He hails from Hopper Mt., and made only a
brief trip up our way. Maybe he was escorting the other 3 Hopper Mt.
birds, plus the 3 Ventana birds. All signals were coming from the
same general direction, off toward the Sierra Madre range. The
signals were sporadic and not reaching me all at the same time. This
is just a guess, but perhaps they were together in a loose group and
some went down to feed, as I wasn’t able to keep a signal from most
of the birds for long. The exception was Y216, a 3 and 1/2 year old
female from Hopper Mt. Her signal kept coming my way most of the day,
as it had done last week, Aug 26th.
This being labor day, I had LOTS of visitors! Cars, jeeps, SUVs, pick-
ups, horses & riders, and bicyclist! One group reported seeing ‘The
Bear’ on the road above the campground. I’ve seen tracks and scat,
but neither hide nor hair of the actual bear!
This week, 9/8/03, I didn’t pick up any signals from Condors. As
Mike, Paul, Lisa and Holly also noted, the birds aren’t moving around
much this week.
The weather at the lookout has been outstanding. The nearly full
moon, closely followed across the sky by Mars, was spectacular!
Bye ’til next installment. And hope to see lots of you on Oct 4th at
the Hi Mountain Lookout Open House!
Kathleen