Getting Fluffy
Lee’s Ferry, Arizona
2025
This isn’t the most exciting photo of a California Condor by a long shot. But it’s the only California Condor I’ve ever seen in the wild and the only one I’ve ever photographed. I do like the fluffy plumage, puffed up to help it keep warm while dosing under a bridge on a cold January morning. We did wait around a while to see if it would decide to fly out over the canyon, but its nap time outlasted us and lacking our own fluffy plumage (i.e. no down coats at the time) we retreated to the van’s warm interior.
If the bird was dosing under a bridge, how did you spot him?? 😉
It’s hard to perceive its size with no other objects for scale than the bridge girders.
Cool that you got to see a wild one!
We could see the under-structure of the bridge and the condor when driving up to it along the canyon edge. I agree the bird’s size is hard to perceive but I couldn’t convince the Fashion Queen to climb down there to provide a better sense of scale. 🙂