Close encounters of the Condor kind

The Ventana Wilderness is home to breeding California Condors - the biggest flying bird in North America.
Yesterday, I was privileged to be able to see Condors of all ages at close quarters; taking off just metres above my head, soaring and thermalling and coming back to top land before doing it all again. Just as the sun was setting and the horizon became lost as sky and sea merged into one mass of silver it seemed like batallions of birds took to the sky to enjoy the restitution and a last flight of the day. Turkey vultures, hawks, swifts and martins and overshadowing them all the Condors....some dodgy tree landings from the big birds as lift became scarce and a few slope landings that required a walk back to the top made it seem like any paragliding hill on a sunny day...the 'dudes' posing and getting in the way of everyone, the 'newbies' hanging around waiting to see what happens and the 'sky-gods' just doing what they do best in a quiet and calm way ignoring the chaos all around :-D

Seeing these critters that look a bit like flying dinosaurs sitting quietly in a tree as we walked by was like stepping back in time. With big beedy eyes and bright red bald heads, these guys are truly ugly when they are hunched up watching you, but when they take-off and fly, the grace and serenity is incredible. We were filming in the lee of the strong meteo wind looking out to the ocean and the rugged Big Sur coastline so it was really interesting to see these mammoth birds scratching low for lift before scrabbling into small lee-siders, tips tucking while they tried to stay with it before losing it as the thermals were smashed by the wind at ridge height. We are not so different after all; millions of years of evolution was telling them to stay with leesiders, so who are we to argue?!
I was itching to get into the air but there was no chance :-(
We saw a juvenile bird nearly miss a tree landing and then get taken out by an incoming adult on the same approach. What followed was a rare and amazing sight: the young bird made a feeding display and was rewarded by the mother regurgitating food to feed her baby. Bear in mind this 'chick' is the size of an average family dog - thats a lot of feeding needed! Wild Condors feeding their young is a sight that even the guys who work here have rarely seen.

The *stars* of this Beast Legends: Killer Birds show, apart from the Condors of course, are Steve Leonard and Francis Manapul. Steve is a vet, sometimes ;-) ! and Francis an artist who draws very cool comic books. Steve has done it ALL, everywhere, at least 2 times but Francis is the city boy who is taking a walk on the very wild side getting up close and personal with sharks, alligators and biting beasties of all sizes!
Its great fun to see Francis reacting to the crazy new experiences that he's thrown into. Yesterday's classic line after stepping into the Condors containment pen where the floor is 100% covered with carcases of all shapes and sizes from rats to cows, was...."I'm walking on freakin dead mouses in my personal shoes" !! Francis is the artistic side of the team, creating the visuals for the beasts of legend while face to face with their present day incarnations.