Frequent visitors to the California condor exhibit at the Wild Animal Park’s Condor Ridge may be wondering what happened to the juvenile, Ojja (pronounced OH-jah), identified by her black head. She lived in Condor Ridge from May, 2004, until last month, when we moved her into an off-exhibit breeding pen. Her new enclosure mate is Simerrye (SIM-er-eye), a six-year old male. Some of you may remember reading a blog about him because he “donated” blood to help condor #134 (”Harry”) in Arizona that was sick from lead poisoning (read the blog, Harry the Condor’s Progress). Ojja is four years old and not quite old enough to breed. If you saw her in the last several months, you may have noticed her pink neck, as she is beginning to get her adult coloration. Ojja is a Bodega Miwok word meaning, “a close relative,” and Simerrye is a Kumeyaay word meaning, “crazy!”

Wild condors get to pick their own mates, but in conservation breeding facilities pairs are arranged through the California Condor Recovery Program. Geneticists have determined that Ojja and Simerrye are a good match, and we hope that by putting them together now they will form a strong pair bond, ensuring reproductive success in the coming years. Condors are a social species, making the arrangement of breeding pairs a bit easier, but we always need to be careful when introducing individuals. We moved Ojja into the breeding pen first to allow her to explore it uninhibited and hopefully feel more comfortable in her new surroundings. The next morning we released Simerrye and fed them their normal diet: rat, melt (beef spleen), trout, and carnivore diet. They both ate a little bit and then Simerrye started to explore. He had lived in the pen briefly at the beginning of the year, so he settled in quickly and then began to interact with Ojja.

In condor social groups, a dominant bird is usually larger, older, or more experienced than other birds, and this case was no exception. Simerrye, being an older, larger bird, asserted his dominance. Condors do not have vocal cords and their vocalizations are limited to grunts and hisses. They do have excellent vision, enabling them to see birds feeding at a carcass from over 1,000 feet (300 meters) in the air, so a lot of their communication is visual. They communicate through body language, posture, and feather position. After chasing Ojja for a few minutes, Simerrye only had to move slightly in a certain direction for her to pick up on what he was doing and make room for him by getting out of the way. We observed the two birds throughout the day and they continued to respect each other’s space.

It has been over a month since their introduction and Ojja and Simerrye seem to be getting along well. So far, we have observed them sitting together on the roost occasionally, but good relationships take time to establish, and we anticipate that their proximity and increasing familiarity will progress to friendly nipping, mutual preening, and courtship displays, and in the next couple of years, copulations and rearing chicks!

Sheila Murphy is a senior condor keeper at the Wild Animal Park.

Pictured above is Sespe, who moved out of the breeding pen and is now living in Condor Ridge.

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