Hi Notes

My trip to Hi Mountain on Wed. Jan 15, 2003 was quiet as far as
Condor signals were concerned. The big birds are staying in Ventana
where they belong…boring for us, good for them! I arrived at the
lookout at about 0845 and it was freezing! The wind was blowing 30
mph from the north and, with the wind chill, it was 26 degrees. It
was a bit foggy and there was not much visibility except to the west
where I could see the coastline. It warmed up to a balmy 56 degrees
by 1500 hours. The highlight of my day came while driving down from
the lookout and seeing what I initially thought was a red tailed hawk
on a snag near the Lopez Lake fork. Upon closer inspection, it turned
out to be a Golden Eagle! The sun was shining like, well…GOLD, on
its head and shoulders. I waited for about 1/2 hour hoping it would
fly. An accipiter, either a Cooper’s Hawk or a Sharp Shinned Hawk,
zoomed by the eagle, but even that wouldn’t encourage it to fly. My
next encounter was with a Bobcat high-tailing it accross the road in
front of my pickup above the campgrounds. Not to be outdone, ANOTHER
Bobcat ran accross the road just above the Salinas River crossing.
Another soul soothing and beautiful day at Hi Mountain!
Bye for now and maybe I’ll see some of you during the Winter Bird
Festival this week…
Kathleen

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Hi notes

The Condors are still shunning Atascadero, so as far as monitoring
goes, it’s pretty quiet on Hi Mountain. I arrived at the lookout at
0830 Wed. Jan 8 and picked up no signals all day. It was sunny and
warm in the morning and got cooler as the day progressed. There was a
lot of bird activity: Calif. Thrashers, Spotted and Calif. Towhees, a
flock of American and Lesser Goldfinches, Golden Crowned Sparrows,
two Red Tailed Hawks, a Northern Harrier, Wrentits, Scrub Jays, Calif
Quail, and Turkey Vultures. With monitoring taking up little time, I
was able to go for a few longer walks and explore the trail that
leads toward the south. After having watched the Lord of the Rings’
second installment, The Two Towers, I could imagine the movie having
been filmed in the rugged ranges around Lopez Lake! The sun and
shadows were spectacular on the mountains surrounding the lookout!
That’s all for now…I miss the Condors, but it’s a good thing that
they aren’t hanging out in Atascadero. Bye for now…
Kathleen

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Hi notes

If you just got a blank message from me…sorry! I composed a message
and then went to the help screen and apparently lost the message. I
was trying to find ’spell check’…if anyone knows how to access it,
let me know! In the meantime, please excuse any typos I don’t catch!.
So here goes again…
The road to Hi Mountain was finally opened at about noon Friday
1/3/03. I navigated the river crossing in my ‘72, 4 wheel drive pick-
up with no problems. A US Forest Service crew was busily cutting up a
huge oak tree that had fallen accross the road at the camp grounds
when I drove by.

We were concerned about rain damage from the two recent storms, and
sure enough, some water had gotten into the downstairs visitor’s
center. My rag mop and I made quick work of THAT, however!
I did some Condor tracking at about 1430 hours, but didn’t pick up
any signals. I had called Mike Barth (at Hopper Mt.) before leaving
Friday morning and he said that two of the Ventana birds that had
been frequenting Atascadero (B161 and Y192) had flown down to the
Hopper Mt. area and were hanging out down there. I had also spoken to
Ryan at the Ventana release site and he said that there were no
Condors in the Atascadero area that he knew of…and he was right!

Mike Tyner arrived at the lookout at about 1600 hours and said he had
seen about 20 Elk near the ranch houses at the Pozo ranger station.
The weather was beautiful: 70 degrees and NO wind at noon. A Northern
Harrier circled below the lookout at 1300 hours while a Calif.
Thrasher accompanied it in song. The Sierras, with a thick covering
of snow, were plainly visible off the North East. It should be
beautiful this weekend if any of you care to visit the lookout!

Enjoy!
Kathleen

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Saturday

Today, 1/04/02, I spent half the day at Hi Mountain lookout, with good
views to the coast of Point Sal and Point Arguello and inland to the
snow-covered southern Sierras. All afternoon a sustained wind more than
20mph blew from the north. Red-tailed hawks and turkey vultures
occasionally sailed by. The weather station recorded about 6 inches of
rain during the month of December and a maximum wind gust of 82mph on
Dec. 16th! Unfortunately, the smaller of the two cypress trees near the
lookout has been broken and knocked down badly and is a smaller version
of its previous self.

“Thank-you” to Kathleen Intorf and Mike Tyner for cleaning up these past
two days after the rain leakage problems, and today Mike gave a very
helpful training session to volunteers DIck and Pat Boyd and myself
regarding lookout operations and radio tracking. Several visitors
stopped by today, by walking, mountain biking, and motorcycling.

This morning there was a non-native red fox near the Pozo Ranger
Station, and when driving by again at dusk a striped skunk was rambling
around. Looking back up to the lookout ridgeline, there was a crescent
moon suspended low over the Santa Lucias.

Steve Schubert
Coordinator, Hi Mountain Condor Lookout Project

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Hi Notes

This first observation is actually from Atascadero, not Hi Mountain. FINALLY I got to actually see the object of my tracking efforts! The day after Paul saw the ‘Atascadero Crew’ on Mon Dec 9th, I was
driving West on Hwy 41 into Atascadero. I looked over to the North and saw three BIG black birds in the dead upper branches of an oak tree behind the Bank of America. Like Paul, I went into ‘birdwatcher
mode’ and forgot the rules of the road. I did make it safely to the parking lot of the business complex behind the B of A and spent about 1/2 hour gawking at OR209, Y192 and B170, who were quite unconcerned
that a dozen humanoids were staring at them. OR209 opened his wings briefly, so that had his size and the number tags on his wings not been enough to identify him, the white triangles on the under side of his wings were a dead giveaway! What a thrill!

OK, now to Hi Mountain: I arrived at the lookout Wed. Dec. 11 at 0830 (I’ve come to like military time and since we use it to send in data, that’s what I’m going to use here). It was interesting to see that only one of the birds that I’d seen the day before in Atascadero was still there: B170. He wasn’t alone though…I got signals from B167 and B168 as well. All three birds stayed until late afternoon, and I’m assuming they flew back to Ventana because I stopped receiving signals late in the afternoon and didn’t get any Thursday morning. The weather at the lookout has become decidedly winterish! There is a
weather station at the lookout which records wind speed, direction, wind chill, temperature, rainfall, etc., which makes it handy to determine just how cold you are! It was 41 degrees when I arrived and
got all the way up to 47 degrees at 1430. With the wind chill (wind blowing at ~30 mph), it was as cold as 34 degrees. But with my turtleneck sweater, 3 sweat shirts, 1 wind breaker, 1 parka, 1  balaclava, 1 ear warmer, 1 beanie, two hoods, 2 pairs of gloves, 1 pair winter bicycling tights, 1 pair levis, 2 pairs socks and 1 pair of hiking boots, the only thing that wasn’t covered with wool, cotton, or down feathers was my eyeballs.

The only birds I saw that day was 1 Calif. Thrasher early in the morning, 1 Sage Sparrow(?), 1 lonely Turkey Vulture at 1330 who circled once and then got the heck out of there. I had come to the
conclusion that the birds were several points higher on the IQ scale than me for not coming up there, but then at 1600 here came two Red Tailed Hawks from the west. They ‘kitted’ for awhile, then soared off to the east. At the same time, a Goodyear Blimp was gliding from north to south. Quite a study in contrasts!
As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t pick up any signals when I monitored at 0600 hours Thursday morning. I had to leave early, so that was the only reading I took.

Another day and night in paradise!
Kathleen Intorf

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Atascadero Condors (again)

Hi all,

While driving north last monday on my way to work in Tahoe, I encountered several Ventana birds as they soared low over downtown Atascadero. It was about 1320hrs and I was driving N on the 101, just
entering Atascadero. Heavy, low clouds and scattered sprinkles. Making my usual scan of the skies and sorting through the kettles of TV’s, I spotted an yellow tagged CA condor flying low over the 101 overpass at HWY 41 E. I made a pretty hazardous lane change and exited the freeway at the 41 off ramp. Sitting at a red light on Curbarail, I spotted another condor with black tags moving toward the 101, must have been less than 25 feet over the Rite Aid shopping center to my north. Fumbling with my binos, notebook, cell phone, and stick shift, I managed to pull into the Chevron station at 41 and 101unscathed. From the Chevron, I had a total of 4 condors, all were less than 50ft above the ground, but had started ringing up by the time I parked. I was never able to get tag #’s, but I did see one Or bird, one Y bird, one B bird ( I think it was 171), and a mystery bird that may have been a W bird.

The Y and B birds were paired and moved directly over me and on up the 41 W toward the Santa Lucias, gaining elevation. The Or and W(?) birds were also paired up and came in from the Salinas R. area off the 41 near the cemetery, I believe. The Or and W birds were following behind the B and Y birds, made a few turns over the Rite Aid and peeled off back toward the riverbed and houses. As soon as I lost the 2 birds headed west, I sped off toward the Salinas R. bridge looking for the other 2. I checked the area for an hour with no luck.

**As an interesting side note, a woman pulled into the Chevron while I was looking up. She asked if I was looking for condors. She said she owns a large piece of property on a hill behind Heilman’s junk yard
where she watches condors perch on her water tank “almost every day”. She was quite friendly and interested in the safety of the birds. This may be a good spot for VWS mobile trackers to check out and, based on her enthusiasm, I don’t think access onto her property would be a problem.

I must say, watching California condors fly over downtown Atascadero is an eerie experience. With so much open country in all directions, these guys seem to be showing a preference, or at least an extreme curiosity,
for the dangerous and populated areas along the 101 (especially Paso Robles and Atascadero) as they make their way south to the Sierra Madre and sometimes on down to Hopper. I’m scared for these guys. Watching from the Chevron, I couldn’t help but feel like these birds entered a time machine sometime back in the Pleistocene and fell out over downtown A-town, December 2002. As majestic as the condors are to watch, something’s just not right with this picture.

Hope this email finds you warm and well. Happy Holidays,
Paul Andreano

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