by Laura Kindsvater
For the fifth year in a row, East Bay skies were once graced with visiting condors, the latest indication that their late-summer range is expanding north as their population recovers.
GPS data revealed that last fall, juvenile condors #1060 and #1191 flew north and spent the evening in the mountains just south of San Antonio Reservoir in Sunol Wilderness Regional Preserve.
This East Bay visit might have gone under the radar without sufficient GPS tracking. Thankfully, Save Mount Diablo has so far been able to fund 60 GPS units for the Pinnacles National Park condor recovery program.
Along with identifying wing tags, GPS has been a great tool to monitor the health and travels of the recovering condor population.
A conservation plan put in place by the United States government led to the capture of all the remaining wild condors by 1987, with a total population of 27 individuals. Their numbers rose through captive breeding, and beginning in 1991, condors were reintroduced into the wild.
Five chicks that hatched from wild nests last year increased the flock to an all-time high of 119 condors.
Condors are highly social and often fly together in small groups. Because fewer than half the condors in the region wear GPS units, exactly how many condors make these trips to the East Bay is unclear.
In fact, an unidentified adult condor was photographed nearby at Sunol Wilderness Regional Preserve during the most recent flight, indicating there may have been more than two condors in the East Bay that day.
Head color is an easy way to distinguish adults from juveniles. Adults feature colorful orange heads, while young condors have dark heads that become mottled as they age.
By five years, condors have their adult coloration. However, most are at least six before they begin nesting, and many don’t nest until they are several years older.
Condors can soar from San Benito County to Alameda County in under two hours and easily cover more than 150 miles in a day. More condors have been visiting along the western front of the Diablo Range between Coyote Reservoir and Anderson Reservoir.
As condors become more familiar with those areas, and as the population continues to grow, it’s likely that flights to the East Bay will become more common.