Hi Notes

Yesterday, Wed. March 26, 2003, was a slow day for Condor
tracking…there were no signals all day. The most memorable bird
sighting for the day was a Belted Kinfisher on a telephone wire just
south of the Las Pilitas turn off on Santa Margarita Lake road.
For any of you who are thinking of driving up to the lookout you will
be pleased to know that the road has been expertly graded by the
Forest Service and is as smooth as glass now (well…it IS a dirt
road on the side of a mountain made of boulders…but it is a VAST
improvement!).
Upon opening the visitor’s center door at the lookout, I was amazed
to find a beautiful metal sculture of a Condor! It has about a five
foot wing span and is curved just like a bird in flight. It has
chains attached to the tops of it’s wings in order to hang it. There
is also a metal sign that will be placed at the gate leading to the
lookout. I met Mike Tyner (Cal Poly student) on his way up to the
lookout as I was driving down. He said a friend of his created these
metal marvels.
There were six visitors to the lookout Wed.: 4 Cuesta students and 2
Forest Service employees from Arroyo Grande.
That’s all for this week.
Kathleen

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Hi Mountain

The Cal Poly Crew is getting ready to start up another round of field
work at Hi Mountain…we love spring. Towards that goal I spend
Saturday afternoon and evening around the lookout. Things are not as
quiet as that were a month or so ago. Many of the wintering birds have
begun to vocalize. There was an abundance of American Robins working
the Toyon berries. The California Trashers seemed to be much louder and
persistent than last month. A couple of other signs of spring include
lots more insects up and about, many flowering plants (phlox, bush
poppy, shooting stars, lupines, vetch and entire hillsides of Ceanothus
(buckbrush)), and large patches of miner’s lettuce in areas that are
blazing hot and bone dry by summer. We did succeed at setting up
several Owl calling stations that will be monitored for the next few
months. We even got some call backs on our first night out. All in all
it looks like it is shaping up to be a fun and productive field season
up at the Lookout.

Hope to see some of you over the next few months.

Francis (aka Dr. V.)

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Sunday 3-23-03 at Hi Mt.

Today was our first day of actual monitoring after having been checked out
by Steve Schubert a while back. Kathleen Intorf was good enough to meet us
at the ranger station early to get us access to the telemetry equipment. It
was foggy in the Pozo valley at first but cleared off later. Scanning at
1000 Hr produced nothing but later at 1330 we picked up signals from Condor
Y194 at a bearing of 330 degrees. The signal was moderate at first but then
faded to weak then nothing. We were very happy to have made a telemetry
’sighting’ on our first day.

Visitors included the resident BLM manager of Carrizzo Plains along with
her two Flat-coated Retrievers. Also a mtn. biker stopped in.

A grand day.

Dick & Pat Boyd

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Hi Notes

Wednesday, March 19, 2003 was spent ‘observing’ one intrepid lady
Condor! I picked up the signal from just one bird, but was able to
follow her from the Ventana Wilderness area, through Atascadero, and
all the way to Hopper Mt. I tried my best to find her with my
binoculars, but could only make out a group of about 6 Turkey
Vultures in the direction of the signals I was receiving from Condor
W231. I talked to Joe Burnette at the Ventana field station and he
said W231 is a young bird (I’m guessing recently released this
winter). W231 was one of four Condors that I tracked 3 weeks ago,
making the same trip. Don’t know why she was alone this time around,
but I say ‘You Go, Girl!’
Despite our efforts to keep the rain out of the lookout, it managed
to get in past our Duct taped doors. So in addition to wielding an
antenna and Telonix receiver, I did duty with a good old mop and
rags. It must have been quite a storm: there were three rock, mud and
shrub slides on the road up to the lookout, but they only came across
half of the road and were not a problem.
The flowers are still blooming and it is a beautiful drive up to the
Top ‘o The Mountain!
Kathleen

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Hi Notes

It was a beautiful day at the lookout yesterday, March 12, 2003…but
no Condor activity to report. I talked to Pam at Hopper Mt. and she
said that two of the birds I had received signals from last week
(Y194 & OR209) stayed at Hopper Mt. and that W231 & OR199 returned to
Ventana.
In addition to the usual bird population at the lookout, I had two
human visitors: One bicyclist (Bob) and one pedestrian (Dave). The
weather is very mild and the wild flowers are putting on quite a show
for those who venture up the mountain.
Bye ’til next week,
Kathleen

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Hi Notes

Hi Notes
Finally, after several months of not receiving signals from the
Condors, I picked up signals from four birds on Wednesday March 6.
They all seemed to be together, travelling from North to South
(perhaps from the Ventana Wilderness area to the Hopper Mountain
area). The four birds were Y194, OR209, OR199 and W231. It was a
sunny but somewhat chilly day at the lookout. The drive to the
lookout is beautiful, with shooting stars and manzanita still in full
bloom. There were 8 wild turkeys strolling along the side of the
road, near the lowest water trough, when I drove home at about 4:30.
Bye ’til next week…
Kathleen

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