I was looking for something a little different to close out my short California Condor series from my Arizona loop. Here's a 4-year-old female, not quite getting her color yet, flying over the Colorado River toward the shoreline.
Tags: California Condor Colorado River Condor Marble Canyon bird critically endangered endangered female rare wildlife
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More condor mating ritual. They just absolutely melted my heart they were so big yet so tender and caring. Here the male 19 slowly circles the female, wings outstretched. What do you think, girls, to have 9 feet of wingspan wrap around you? Sigh.
There were 3 voyeurs around this pair, but since I had kinda clipped their body parts, I decided to crop them away completely. A note too about my shooting-from-above strategy. On occasion, I did make effort to get further from the subjects if they happened to be under my feet so to speak.
Tags: California Condor Condor bird critically endangered endangered mating mating pair mating ritual rare wildlife Marble Canyon
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Here's another image of a loving Condor pairing, P8 a 10-year-old female mating with 19 a 13-year-old male. It was remarkable to see them working to save their critically endangered species. Springtime must really be a joyful time for the condors, as it looked like they all wanted to share in the delight.
I might add I didn't really care much for the overhead angle, basically hanging over the bridge, but it was nevertheless spectacular. I do have another equipment story shooting from a bridge (to go with the dropped polarizer at TRNP a couple of years ago). A lady I met was using a big lens (kinda like mine) on a bean bag she placed on the "railing". I thought that was a good idea, instead of resting my gear on the concrete structure. So I shlepped back to the car a short distance and came back with my favorite bean bag I use all the time on my car window. I noticed it had a couple of holes to thread a strap to it, and thought what a good idea that would be. Back at the bridge, I flopped it on the railing, miscalculated, and it fell. Yup, all the way to the river edge. Needless to say, I kept my camera/lens strap around my neck the duration of the trip.
Tags: California Condor Condor Gymnogyps californianus bird critically endangered endangered mating mating pair rare wildlife
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Here's another from my AZ loop in March 2024 to see the California Condors. I still have 1800 images left to work through, but this stood out as a huge favorite, especially after I had ID'd the two as a mated pair, from other images. A previous post told their precious story. What a joy to see them fly together, and let's not forget the 9-foot wingspan. So flying together, that's like 18 feet vertical in this image. K6 the male, L4 the lovely female.
Tags: California Condor Condor bird critically endangered endangered rare wildlife
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SoCal is in a state of May Gray. At least two solid days of thick marine layer. I have been hanging around the yard, trying to get as much mileage as I can of my Spring Superbloom, and the hummingbirds digging it. Yesterday with the cloud cover I even used flash for awhile, with some success, but the hot-shoe mounted flash probably needed to be on a bracket, the catch lights were in some cases unnatural. So, today, no flash, just no wings on my hummers. And I added the 1.4 tele (no extension tube). I hope you can appreciate the challenge of finding the path through the flowers to the bird. Note the poppy dead center about to blow its top. I love that.
Tags: Anna's Anna's Hummingbird California California Poppy Hummingbird Mexican Sage bird eschscholzia californica hummer poppy wildflowers wildlife
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