[WAHOOOOO!!!!!]

Portland, OR - Ewauna, a young, Oregon Zoo-reared California condor, took to the open skies recently at a release site in California's Pinnacles National Monument, joining 22 other wild condor residents in the 26,000-acre park. Zoo officials expect condors Yak'Mo and Kalak-ala also will be released in the coming weeks at sites in Southern California and the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in northern Arizona, respectively.

WAHOOOOO!!!!! 

             

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That is one weird photo, Donna!  Can't tell which end is which...and what's up with the stuff that looks like it's around her legs?  Strange....   

Another Improve Everywhere stunt in NY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9iq9gdeIE4

Enjoy!

   It's so nice to see little fluff balls again...   

Well I think I just thanked people on the other board last month being I wasn't on this one yet, but thanx to all including the additional greetings 

Posting your B-Day card here was meant to entice you over here...and it worked!   

Wow...that new exhibit sounds so very cool!  Guess I need to save my money to go there next year for vacation, huh?   

Being a retired dancer, I love and appreciate almost anything having to do with any form of dance.  Everyone has their own opinion on these kinds of things... sooooo ...I can only come up with one comment on this video...      ???

Okay...my time was 10.24 for the 70 piece bulbs.  I think the other bird is just above the female but I can't make it out?   

Re below...how does "microtrash" get into a condor's gut? Do they pick at and swallow themselves? Is it ingested with carrion which has swallowed it? Do the parents pick it up and feed it to a chick? You wouldn't think this trash would look like food or taste good.

Grace (So. Calif ) (still hoping to see a condor in the wild)

All of the above, Grace.  Bullet casings are ingested while eating carrion.  Bits of plastic bottle tops or pop-top tabs are eaten as they are mistaken for pieces of bone (bone is eaten by vultures the same as pebbles are eaten by other raptors), and it's taken to the nest scrape and fed to the chicks for the same purpose.

Vultures - this includes condors - have figured out that landfills are great places to find food, which is also where they find all the bad things.  They also pick up microtrash just out in the open that people have thrown out (read idiots who litter!!!)

If you want to see one, just take a drive north to Sespe or Ventana or Los Padres National Forest or Big Sur.  One of the release sites is at Bitter Creek.  Or you can go to the Grand Canyon - they release on the south rim, but the birds have now made their way to the north rim!

   to Dot's post. 

Photos 3 and 4 are of Topatopa, who lives at the L.A. Zoo.  He's 43 years old (just celebrated his birthday!) and has been with us since he was found abandoned and brought to the zoo when he was just about a year old in 1966.  He's still part of our breeding flock and he's been with his mate, Malibu, for over 30 years!

BTW...photo #6 shows the hand puppets used to feed chicks.  These still might be used at other facilities but are not used any more at the L.A. and San Diego Zoos.  We now foster abandoned or mistreated chicks to other pairs who may not be able to breed any longer.

Very cool site!

Microtrash is one of the biggest threats to the health of all vultures, not just the California condor, and is one of the primary things we work so hard to educate the public about.  I had heard about this already, what you posted is the first public news about the 3 chicks.  It's very difficult for those who work so hard on the Recovery Program to deal with but we get through it.  The seven wild-hatched were a blessing to help ease the pain of losing these three.  There were many more captive hatched but I don't have a definitive number on those yet. 

 

 Mirta,

That's very interesting!  The mantis we have in So Cal are not European Mantises though, just the normal plain ones.  I do get babies occasionally around the yard...they're so cute!  I had a female on my car's front windshield the other day that decided to go for a short ride     with me.  She lasted almost half a mile before she decided it was time to get off!

Okay...I don't do so well with the 48 piece ones...5.21!   

Janet and Judi, very good, you were both faster than me 
 
I have to practise a bit more.
greetings Aafke

But not by much!   

All I can say is Wow!  What an amazing story and what an amazing woman.