No, it’s not Christmas time again in San Diego… it’s breeding season for the California condors! The birds are intermittently engaged in courtship displays and mating bouts, and the first two eggs of the season have been laid. This breeding behavior will continue to be the first order of business for most of our condors in the next month or two.

As part of our research into the behavior of this endangered bird, we are collecting acoustic recordings of condor vocalizations. So far, we have sounds with names such as “snort” and “wheeze” catalogued. I am currently haunting the off-exhibit facilities where the mating pairs reside in order to capture some of the breeding-related sounds the birds make. In doing so, we will have a more complete repertoire of condor vocalizations to study.

Yesterday, I observed courtship behavior in two mating pairs. Each pair contains males brought into managed care in the 1980s, when wild condors numbered so few that managers opted to bring them all into managed breeding programs to try to save the species. Both males AC-4 and AC-5 were courting their mates by arching their necks, spreading their wings, and displaying an exaggerated walking style. AC-5 even placed a foot on the wing of his mate, Cachuma. Unfortunately, neither Cachuma or the other female, Mexwe, seemed interested in mating that day, so no further activity was seen. No vocalizations were heard during these courtship displays.

While waiting for some breeding behavior to materialize, I was fortunate to observe the condor keepers yesterday as they pulled the second egg of the season from a nest. The female, Molloko, had laid the egg the previous afternoon. Molloko, a daughter of AC-4, is the first condor conceived and hatched in managed care, back in 1988. Her egg was removed in order to encourage her to mate again with her companion, Xol Xol, and to lay another egg. If all goes well, she should be mating again in about a month.

I’ll keep at it until we have some good audio recordings of condor mating vocalizations. Hopefully, I’ll be able to share some with you as well. In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed for another successful California condor breeding season!

Suzanne Hall is the senior research laboratory technician for the Giant Panda Conservation Unit of Applied Animal Ecology/CRES. She is also studying condor behavior. Read her previous blog, Condor Colors.

Posted in Default, Conservation, General | Link to this post

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Scroll to the end to leave a comment. Pinging is not allowed.