California Condor Eben McMillan 14 January 1963 Ian and I then drove above the Percy Ranch home and crossed northward into Sulpher Creek, a tributary of Hopper Canyon, that breaks out into wide potreros on the upper half of Hopper Mountain on the East Side, and is open grassland as its headwaters. We camped at the lower end of this grassland area in Sulpher Canyon at a location where during the years from 1926 till 1929 an oil well had been drilled here that had included a quite elaborate campsite. Evidently the crew who did the drilling remained at this site during the operation for remains of houses, water tanks and such likes are still evident. It would be reasonable to expect that this crew would be like most oil drilling crews, somewhat lawless in nature and ready to shoot at anything that offered a target. Two adult Golden Eagle were circling north of Percy Ranch home in Soda Creek at 11:55 A.M. Two adult Golden Eagle overhead at old oil well site in Sulpher Canyon at 1:00 P.M. At 1:45 P.M. one condor observed circling upwards over him to the North of our camp in Sulpher Canyon. This bird was riding the strong updraft of east wind that was racing up out of Hopper Canyon from the Hole-in-the-wall area and remained facing into this wind seemingly capable of moving upward-side ways, downward or backward, as well as forward, with no apparent muscles effort, and with little use of any of its [illegible]; at least to a given point one could see in the use of movement of the wings or tail. After sitting on this wind for about two minutes this condor, after having drifted up the ridge about—