27/11/22 Кондорёнок находится в воздухе🦅💨🏜🥲I’d say we have a successfully airborne Condor Chick 1160

27 Ноября 2022 года, ущелье Тома, Калифорния, США: 27 November 2022, Tom’s Canyon, California, USA: With this brief shot, I’d say our condor chick is now a a creature of the air.* 0:06 - A condor soars past in the right bottom corner of the screen. Shortly after, ... 0:49 - one lands right next to Condor Chick 1160’s favourite spot, the bush where he’s been making himself invisible half the time since he left the cave. :D The Condor flew in slightly low, at an oddly trajectory, one a seasoned adult probably wouldn’t have chosen. 0:54 - The condor ducks behind it partially for a spell. There doesn’t appear to be any interaction with a second condor, as one sees when the mother visits her chick behind his favourite bush. 1:22 - The condor then turns & leaps off the edge of the cliff, freefalls enough to gain lift from his enormous wings & successfully, confidently, flies away, off-screen (1:27). If this was indeed Condor Chick 1160, this is the most assured take-off I have observed. It worries me much less to see this more competent take-off & flight than those I have previously observed. If this the last time we see our big-little Condorenok, or even one of the last, then I wish him well & hope he goes on to create & raise more condors, like this mother has now, for her first time. Well done to the father also: together they have successfully fed & protected one big bird, incubated, raised & nurtured with hugs. To think that grey fluffy round guy is up in the air getting all set to take his chances in the world, with his parents continuing his care out in the field, away from his cave creche is a wonderful thought, whatever becomes of Condor Chick 1160. As a very close, quite vigilant observer of Condor Chick 1160, I believe he only recently fledged, possibly only the day first time I saw a 2nd condor fly off with one standing nearby, in shot**. An earlier take-off made that same day,(yesterday) did not include a second condor in shot simultaneously, but one had flown off, competently like a seasoned adult, moments earlier. I believe that to be his first true flight. unlike the second, which aso showed the (rough) landing, the landing from the first take-off was evidently off-screen. Somehow meanwhile that same condor ended up on the slope - further down than usual, as seen just before his 2nd (shambolic) take-off. * (though I cannot be 100% certain from my position) ** (It is actually fortunate that both were in shot, because only moments before the camera had framed the scene to focus on one condor, excluding a 2nd further down the slope - in an unusual position, perhaps not realising that it was there. As it turned out, THAT condor was the one who flew off haphazardly, crashing a couple of times into the slope before getting airborne - for a 2nd time that day, possibly only hs 2nd time ever - before landing as haphazardly, like the esrlier abortive attempts at flight we have observed this month). [file name: ] Cave view is here: Cross-canyon view currently available here: This is from the California Condor project’s webcams, obviously, so all thanks & credit goes to them (the obvious rightholder) for all their work to not only bring us streams of then but for their existence. #condor #californiacondor #nest #cave #birds #wildlife #nature #california #endangeredspecies #conservation