From my field notes - "11
December 1969-1100: with John Borneman, hiked up Sisar Canyon
area to base of Topatopa Bluffs.
"1400: adult condor appeared over west end of Topatopa Bluffs;
drifted south toward Sulfur Mountain, then west; circled up canyon
and eventually (1445) roosted in lowest part of east wall of westernmost
Topa cliff canyon.
"1500: we left area; condor still on roost."
On our return to California, Sally,
the kids, and I saw the Ojai Valley the way it should be seen,
from the top of Dennison Grade on the road from Santa Paula. To
the east of us were the Topatopa Bluffs, a rugged escarpment that
we would learn was the collector of uncommon Southern California
snows and the focal point of a fantastic "pink moment,"
as the setting sun created its own lowland version of alpenglow.
Ahead was the chaparral-covered wall of the Ojai Front, stretching
west and seeming to merge unbrokenly with White Ledge Peak and
the Santa Ynez Mountains beyond. Behind us was the lower bulk
of Sulfur Mountain, dipping west toward the ocean. Below was Shan-gri-La
itself, the Ojai Valley: half town, half orange grove, all beautiful
and, from this elevation, a little other-worldly. Easy to see
why it was picked as the idyllic paradise in the film version
of James Hilton's "Lost Horizon." Easy to imagine California
condors circling the rugged Topatopa Bluffs.
Much of November and December 1969 was taken up with the necessities
involved in moving to a new place and taking on a new job. We
stayed for awhile in an expensive motel, then a cheaper motel,
and finally our own home (which seemed impossibly expensive then,
but the price seems laughable now). I began to get adjusted to
my new office, one room conveniently located in the Ojai Ranger
Station, and started to familiarize myself with the files left
by Fred Sibley. I renewed acquaintance with my college friend,
Dean Carrier, the Forest Service condor biologist; was introduced
to the other local Forest Service folks; and re-met John Borneman,
the National Audubon Society "condor warden" (now more
appropriately called condor "naturalist") who I had
first met during the 1965 condor survey.
About two weeks after arrival in
Ojai, Dean suggested that we begin my orientation to "condor
country" by checking out the nesting habitat up in San Luis
Obispo County. One pair of condors there had been nesting every
year for a number of years in succession, a very unusual circumstance.
(Because of the long reproductive cycle, condors usually were
unable to breed in consecutive years.) I was game - at least I
was for the first half of the trip. I thought I was in pretty
good physical shape, but I soon learned otherwise. Cruel joke:
we had to hike downhill to get to the condor observation area,
meaning that we had to climb uphill to get back to the car. Even
downhill wasn't easy: it was hot and dry, the terrain was very
steep, and the "hike" was really a mile or so of crashing
through and crawling under dense, clothes-ripping, tick-infested
chaparral. We checked the nest cliff from a distance, and saw
fresh "whitewash" (condor excrement), but there was
no sign of the condors, themselves. That was disappointing to
me, but nowhere near as disappointing as having to face the climb
back up the hill that we had just slid down. It was still just
as hot and dry as it had been, the brush was just as dense, and
up was so much harder than down. Before we reached the top, I
could barely put one foot ahead of the other, and was likely pretty
close to heat prostration. We made it without having to call out
the rescue team for me, but it felt like a near thing. What an
embarrassing introduction to condor research. And still no condor
for my "life list."
A couple weeks later, John Borneman
found me in my office going through old condor files, and suggested
we spend the afternoon in the field. I was ready. (I didn't even
ask him if we were going to have an uphill climb at the end of
the day.) We drove up Dennison Grade, across the Upper Ojai Valley,
and up Sisar Canyon. From there, we hiked up a bulldozed fire
break to the base of the Topatopa Bluffs. As we sat in the bright
sunlight gazing out over the Ojai Valley to the Pacific Ocean
beyond, an adult California condor soared into view from the Nordhoff
Peak area. Just like in the books: orange head, white triangles
under the wings, massive wingspread, flight as effortless and
steady as could be. It glided back and forth in the air space
between the Bluffs and Sulfur Mountain, sometimes near and sometimes
far away, until some 45 minutes later it landed on a brown-banded
pinnacle at the west end of the Bluffs. We watched for another
15 minutes or so, but it seemed to have settled for the night,
so we walked back to the car and drove back to Ojai. I had seen
my first condor - and only about five miles from home.
The condor drought ended in earnest, as the next day John and
I hiked up Santa Paula Canyon into an historic condor nesting
area. We immediately saw two condors, and watched them for two
hours as they went through what I was to learn was a typical winter
morning condor ritual.
0935 - 1 condor (unclassified) roosting in a snag on ridge
between Santa Paula Canyon and the Bear Heaven area. 1016 - 1
adult condor circling above Jackson Camp, went out of sight quickly;
reappeared 1030, soared around, landed at 1037 on rock outcrop
in side canyon east of Jackson Camp; sat sunning 1039-1049.
1043 - discovered second adult condor roosting on cliff below
Bird A. 1055 - golden eagle passed near condors, no obvious reaction.
1058 - airplane in distance; lower condor (Bird B) turned head
from side to side, but continued head tilting after I couldn't
hear the plane anymore, so maybe not cause and effect. 1108 -
Bird B left shadowy perch, took short soar and landed a short
distance away in the sun; immediately started sunning. 1112 -
Bird A left perch, soared down Santa Paula Canyon in a flex glide,
out of sight 1114.
1115 - Bird B quit sunning. 1116 - took off, soared to the shady
wall again, landed with its face to the wall in a grassy cup.
1117 - raised and spread wings, turned around, then turned back
to the wall a minute later. 1127 - has just been sitting for 10
minutes, occasionally turning head; raised wings (balancing?)
and walked a few steps. 1136 - took off, glided directly to edge
of rockpile just right of the original perch. 1138 - took off,
long glide (one or two double dips) down canyon and out of sight
1139.
In that two-hour period, the descriptions
in Koford's monograph began to become real to me. I had seen the
condors react to the morning sun by moving to exposed perches
and spreading their wings to take advantage of the warming rays
("sunning"). I had observed a typical "flex glide,"
the condor's way of streamlining its wings so that it can lose
altitude at steady, increasing speed. The diagnostic "double
dip," which condor survey participants were told was a sure
sign they were seeing a condor, was straight out of the book:
the wings flexing quickly downward to almost touch under the condor's
belly, before just as quickly returning to the flat, steady, typical
glide position.
I was getting to like this new job.