Our cohort of California condors has been adjusting well to life outside the nest, and the birds have established some pretty clear hierarchical relationships (see Suzanne's previous blog, Considering Condors). It seems that Blue, the lone male of the group and, to our eye, the biggest of the yearlings, is at the top of his class. Despite his comfort with the mentor Itaxme (who is still the boss when it comes to the younger birds), he doesn't seem to hoard his position over the other birds. He is calm and is rarely aggressive with others. But no one messes with him.

Somewhere in the middle are Red and White. Sometimes they pick on other birds, and sometimes they are the victims. White is a bit unusual, as she has been seen wing-begging to other birds, a food-solicitation behavior most condors leave behind when they leave the nest. White also seems unusually bold at times, challenging the mentor bird and frequently aggressive with others. On the other hand, she has a special relationship with Blue, and the two can be seen cuddling and preening each other from time to time.

Yellow stands alone at the bottom of the hierarchy. She is attentive to the moods of the other birds and clears out when someone is making waves. She is frequently the target of aggressive moves made by Red or White. Yet she always seems to rebound well and can be found playing or preening with other birds.

Soon our little cohort will be making a big transition. In four to five weeks, they will be shipping south to their release site in Baja California, Mexico. There, they will join a few other birds of the same age, raised at the Los Angeles Zoo. This larger cohort will be housed in a flight pen with a new mentor bird and will spend many months acclimating to the weather and other conditions in the area that will become their permanent home. In 2008, these birds will be released into the wilds of Baja, where they will join 11 other birds from previous years in the mountainous Sierra San Pedro de Martír National Park.

In the meantime, our colorful cohort will receive the necessary medical exams to ensure that they are healthy. One will get a transponder so that tracking the animal in the wild will be easier. And all will lose their colorful wing tags in favor of the standard " Baja blue" tags that all birds wear in Sierra San Pedro de Martír. We will continue to observe them throughout this preshipment period, and researchers in Baja are prepared to pick up where we leave off once the birds do move.

We hope that all this effort pays off, and that these birds thrive as successful, breeding members of the Baja condor population. We did have a previously released condor make a trek across the border into San Diego County recently, so who knows? Maybe I will see one of these birds again someday. I hope you have the opportunity to see one, too. The more people that have the opportunity to spot them in the wild, the more likely it is that our project is succeeding in restoring these birds to their historical range.

Suzanne Hall is the senior research laboratory technician for the Giant Panda Conservation Unit of Applied Animal Ecology/CRES.

Here's more information about the California Condor Recovery Program.

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.