California Condor Eben McMillan 5-January 1964 The Northeast wind blew a gale throughout the night. We were up at sunrise and had breakfasted and driven back up to the end of the roadway on the ridge Northwest of Percy home by 8:30 A.m. At 9:45 A.m., as we were walking along trail on East slope of Hopper Mountain, we saw five (5) Condor circling in the Canyon some distance below us. Three of these Condor came up out of this canyon fast-moving along the south side near its top and then crossing over above the old oil well site in the bottom of the canyon to clear the North rim and go out of sight around behind the North rim at an elevation about 3 or 400 feet below the level where we sat. These were all adults. The other two Condor flew Southward on a level about even with the Percy home and went from sight behind the ridge that separates this canyon from Hopper Ranch, or Percy Ranch Canyon. Three Condor rose above the ridge to our North and circled not far above where the three had passed from sight a few moments before, we watched these birds rise up and after getting some height above the Hopper rim, fly out towards the Northeast. A strong and cold wind was blowing along the upper slopes of Hopper Mountain. We noticed that the Condor rose up out of the canyon bottom very suddenly and apparently with little effort. As these birds reached the top of the ridge across from where we sat, they did quite a bit of flapping of their wings. I thought the Condor showed less stability than on calm days. That is they did more flapping and when circling made short uneven gyrations, but they also seemed to travel faster and were able to gain altitude much quicker. No doubt it takes them more energy to remain aloft at this time of year