Hi Notes

LOTS of Condor activity since my last posting! You already heard from Mike and Roger regarding the seven Condors who checked out the Colony/Condor Days Parade in Atascadero, Oct 18th. I was working at the Templeton Resource Conservation District’s Watershed Fair booth in the Atascadero Sunken Gardens and happened to look up at a group of “Turkey Vultures” flying overhead…WHOA!!! Those aren’t TVs! Those are Condors! Four of these beautiful birds flew over, circled and flew back over again. I guess they weren’t in the market for hand crocheted doilies or brochures on water conservation as they kept heading south and out of sight. DJ Funk was on the ball and whipped out his video camera and got some footage of the four birds.

Last Tuesday (Oct 21)as I was on my way up to the lookout I stopped to check out a huge kettle of TVs in Atascadero on Hwy 41 and picked up a signal for Y192. I couldn’t pick her out in the crowd, but Mike
Tyner checked Wed. morning and got a signal from her, still inAtascadero. I kept getting signals all day Wed. Oct 22 and found that she was still in Atas. Thursday morning. She was perched in some dead branches of a huge Gray Pine. Later that morning a friend reported seeing her flying East from Atascadero.
This morning, Tues. Oct 28th I spoke to Denise Stockton at Hopper Mt. checking on a bird who had been missing for about a week (156, a six year old female). The good news is that she has turned up and is fine. The unhappy news is that the Hopper Mt. facility was in the path of the terrible fires down south. None of the main buildings were burned but they think they have lost some of their holding pens and blinds for observing the Condors at Hopper Mt. Denise said they are going to try to get up to these areas today to check out the damage. Luckily, no birds were in captivity and as far as they know all the released birds are o.k.

Bye ’til next time,
Kathleen