California Condor Eben McMillan 13 February 1964 A cold North wind was blowing, with cloud remains, from a storm front that had passed quickly through the area last night, banding on the Temblor and adjoining mountain ranges as it drove down the Bitterwater valley at 8:00 A.M. What grass remained along the route had been turned browner by the cold weather of the last few mornings. The shepherd with whom I had talked last Sunday at the mouth of the Bitterwater valley had moved away. Another shepherd, herding a flock of sheep on the grassless plain, two miles southeast of Blackwalls Corner near the roadside of highway 33 was burning the heaps of Russian Thistle that had lodged in a ditch, in order to warm himself, as I stopped to talk with him. He said he had been in this area two days with his flock of sheep. That his boss had to move the sheep from alfalfa fields near Modesto, California, in order that the farmers could commence irrigating their alfalfa. This harder suit that his boss, Antoine, had rented the pasture, he was now on, from Jake Martins. That even though there was no forage plants on this bare plain, that he had no where else to go. Therefore the sheep would be held here and fed hay if necessary, to keep them alive, until rains come to bring on green feed. This shepherd knew nothing of condor and probably would never become interested in watching for them, so I left him at his bonfire. At 10:45 A.M. I arrived in the field, out on the flats, in front of the mouths of Plieto and Plietito Canyons that are on the San Emigdio Ranch about twenty miles south of Bakersfield, Kern County, California. It had been cold here also as was evidenced by grass that had been green when I was here last Sunday, and had now turned brown and withered to nothing. The North-