Condors at Hi Mt!!!

Condors at the Hi Mountain Lookout!!! 

On Sunday the 4th of April a California Condor flew over the lookout, circled and headed south towards Santa Barbara County. On Saturday the day before, Amy Millan picked up a strong signal from the north. The signal was from w231 a female born on the 30th of April in 2000 and released in Ventanna Wilderness the 5th of April in 2001. This is the same Condor that has been traveling back and forth from the Ventanna Wilderness to Hopper in the past month. On Sunday mourning Jamie Miller was receiving a signal from w231 from the north. Finally the signal was so strong we knew she had to be very close. Everyone at the lookout began to scan the horizon towards the north and Black Mountain. Dr. Villablanca a professor at CalPoly, a former CalPoly Student who used to volunteer at the lookout, two visitors from England, a family from Atascadero, Jamie Miller, Jeremy White and I saw the condor flew directly towards the lookout from the north. She was almost at eye level and seemed to be curious about all the commotion. The Condor flew right above the lookout, circled around, flapped her beautiful wings and headed south along Garcia Ridge. When she was above us we could clearly read her tag. Dr. Villablanca noticed she was molting some of her primaries as well. We continued to pick up her signal from the south for several hours. After volunteering at the lookout for several months now it was so amazing to see a condor right above our heads. Later that day Jeremy White and I hiked down Hi-Valley trail to look for the Peregrine Falcon nest site. After about an hour we saw a pair of Prairie Falcons. Then maybe about a half an hour later we heard a contact call from a Peregrine Falcon. The falcon headed towards Hi-Valley Rock and out of a hole in a crevice another Peregrine Falcon came out. We were able to see within an hour a pair of Prairie Falcons and Peregrine Falcons. The day before there was also a pair of immature Golden Eagles that soared by the lookout. Lots of raptors at Hi Mountain !!

Cedrick Villaseñor

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Huff's Hole

Yesterday, 4/6/04, Kevin Cooper and I made our annual trip into Huff’s Hole, in the Santa Lucia Wilderness Area below Hi Mountain Lookout. Our group of nine, including 3 of my visiting family from Oregon, cleared the trail of brush and poison oak and made our way into Hi Valley. We cleaned out the soil and organic debris from the Chumash grinding holes near Hi Valley Rock and continued on along its base, where we were alerted to the presence of a pair of territorial prairie falcons by there cak-ing vocalizations. One falcon perched at the edge of a pothole with whitewash- a probable eyrie- located on one of the outcrops between Hi Valley Rock and the Huff’s Hole cliffs- this was the same pothole eyrie where peregrine falcon chicks were cross-fostered with prairie falcon parents many years ago, by Lee Aulman from SCPBRG and Kevin Cooper from USFS.

We reached the green protrero of Huff’s Hole and made our way up to the observation point where last year in May- viewing across the intervening canyon to the cliffs- a resident pair of peregrine falcons had been observed bringing prey into an eyrie. While the rest of the group was sitting down and getting out food for lunch at 12 noon, I arrived at the OP and decided before eating to first scan with my binoculars and search for a perched peregrine somewhere on that massive cliff exposure- no luck, but then…

I found myself saying “Oh my God, there is a condor there in a cave!”. I viewed an orange head and black feathers exposed on the edge of a large depression in the cliffs, more than 1/4 mile distance. For the next 3 hours, we watched with binoculars and spotting scope, and photographed with telephoto lense and by videotaping. Condor B168 was identified by his wing tag numbers and by the telonics equipment that Kathleen Intorf and Mike Tyner used to get a radio signal- he is a Ventana Wilderness Society released bird, a 7 year old male. The condor entered and disappeared into the cave about a half hour, reemerged awhile preening and stretching wings, then took flight soaring above the ridgeline about 25 minutes, sometimes among neighboring turkey vultures. The condor
appeared to be departing to the north above the ridgeline beyond our view, for our apparent last look at it, but then returned up high and swept back and forth above the cliff face. More excitement when B168 was dived on by a red-tailed hawk (Gary Guliazi later spotted the red-tail’s stick nest occupied by an incubating adult, on the cliffface below where the condor had been attacked).

I was videotaping as the condor swept along the cliffs and circling around “Dragon’s Head”, and was pleased for my niece Emily who is gathering information, incluing videotaping, for her high school science project and talk she will be giving on California Condor research…it was dramatic firsthand experience in the field for her, in spite of her great fear of poison oak, ticks and bugs in general! The condor made several more brief flights by the time we departed and took a last look back to the cliffs in the distance at 3pm.

We sweated our way up the exhausting climb back to the lookout on Hi Mountain…a good day had by all. We will now be looking into B168’s other recent radio tracking movements and whereabouts by communicating with the VWS and USFWS condor staff. Monitoring condor activity at Huff’s Hole will continue, where last condor nesting occurred in the early 1970’s more than 30 years ago.

Steve Schubert

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Work Weekend March 5th-7th

Hi all,

Over the three day weekend a total workforce of 20 were onsite at Hi Mountain Lookout, coming and going at different times. Several camped out one or two nights. Much was accomplished, assisting contractor John Porter with installation of lightning protection, electrical grounding and other safety improvements.

John Porter was a safety contractor for many years working for the Forest Service on many Sierra fire lookouts, and was referred to us by Kathy Ball from Buck Rock Lookout in Sequoia National Forest. John made the long drive to Hi Mountain from his residence near Lake Isabella in the southern Sierras.

With the use of a jackhammer, pick and shovels four trenches approximately 80 feet long were dug from the corners of the lookout- with great exertion by our volunteers- to bury the copper grounding

wires for lightning protection. Installing electrical conduits and welding the copper grounding wires around the lookout before burial also kept the workers occupied. Other group projects included: levelling an uneven rocky surface- using the jackhammer- that was difficult to walk across and using that rubble to fill in the depression around the Visitor Center entranceway; installing a chainlink mesh to fill in the lower gap on the stairway to prevent potential injuries due to falling through; brushing the slope below the lookout; setting-up a blue bird nesting box and bird feeder; cleaning the Visitor Center and redesigning the framed wall hangings; telemetry training for new volunteers, and other helpful projects.

For the potluck dinner Saturday night, the upstairs oven and stove were put to good use by Michaela and Lisa making dinner preparations. The group socialized upstairs by candlelight into the night, as the full moon and Jupiter were rising in the east and Venus was high in the west. A persistent 20 to more than 30 mph wind from the NE blew most the day into the evening, yet there was not a breath of wind just a few miles away below in the Pozo Valley (more amazingly, during the Feb. 25th heavy rainstorm the weather station recorded a maximum wind gust of 135 mph!!)

Thank-you to all for all the hard work and great accomplishments this weekend. Hope to see many of you at the May 8th picnic for staff and volunteers.

Steve Schubert

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Forest Service Recognition

Hi everybody. I just wanted to let you know that the Washington office of
the Forest Service recognized the Hi Mountain Lookout Project as an
excellent example of the Naturewatch program, and gave us some good press.
I was happily surprised at our regional meeting with the award. I plan to
piggyback on this and use the exposure to help obtain some funding.
Seems like every time we get the word out, we get recognized. Good Work!
I’ll be at the lookout next weekend for the work day. Hope to see you
there.

Kevin Cooper, Forest Service Biologist.

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Hi Notes

I spent a couple of pleasant days up at the lookout this week and was rewarded with signals from two Pinnacles National Monument condors: Bk 265 and Bk 287. I don’t know if these two birds just have stronger transmitters or if they are up and about more than the other 4 birds, but I’ve picked up at least one of them the last three times I’ve monitored from the lookout. As was reported by Steve Schubert, two Condors were SIGHTED from the lookout last week. They were W231, a four year old female and B168, a seven year old male. W231 is the same bird that I sighted from the lookout Oct 1, 2003, which causes me to speculate that they MIGHT be checking out Huff’s Hole for a future nesting sight. W231 probably hasn’t reached sexual maturity yet (usually 5 or 6 years of age), but
she’s close! Keep your eyes peeled for huge black birds with white triangles under the leading edge of their wings!

‘Til next time,
Kathleen

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Condors at Hi Mt.

Last Friday, 2/6, USFS wildlife biologists Kevin Cooper and Tom Murphey were working on improvements at Hi Mountain Lookout, joined by several Cal Poly students staffing the lookout. They had a sighting of two condors ‘chasing’ each other over the Huff’s Hole cliffs below, then continuing on and perching in a tree near one of the large rock outcrops to the east of Hi Valley Rock. Kevin got the telonics out to take a radio tracking reading and was able to identify the two white-tagged condors as a 7 year old male and a 4 1/2 year old female. A condor was also seen from Hi Mountain as recently as last November. Last nesting activity of condors at Huff’s Hole was in the early 1970’s.

Steve Schubert

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