While we watched, it explored its surroundings, sunned its wings, and even flew a little! It was lots of fun to watch and share Charlie Jr. with others who came to enjoy the bridge :)
We were driving from Portland, OR to Farmington, NM when I realized that if we took a "mere" 4 hour detour then we could stop by Navajo Bridge, AZ for a couple of hours...done! I was hoping to see adult California Condors roosting on the bridges again and when we got there, I excitedly scanned the bridges only to quickly realize that there weren't any condors on them. I was disappointed to say the least. I love this spot regardless; the scenery is gorgeous and it's just a pleasant place to be, but with so few places to reliably see condors my hopes had been high that they would be here like last time. Despite needing to move on down the road, I wanted to stay a little longer so we watched as the river flowed and created whirlpools along the stretch that we could see. The time passed and no condors had arrived so I decided to make one last scan before we left and that's when I saw the dark spot with lots of whitewash on the cliffs. There was no way I was going to be lucky enough to have spotted a nest...but when we got the scope on the right spot there it was, a wild hatched condor!!! Whoohoo! It turns out that there was a star party scheduled on the bridge for that evening and when the park rangers showed up, one was able to tell me about this recently hatched condor. This condor hatched on May 7, 2022 to parents 775/tag R5 (female) and 619/tag 19 (male). Both parents were hatched and raised in captivity at the Oregon Zoo and The World Center for Birds of Prey, respectively, before being released (I assume at Vermillion Cliffs, AZ). According to CondorSpotter.com, this appears to be their first chick! As of September 2022, there are only 4 known wild hatched birds in the AZ/UT population from this breeding season and 2 more immatures from the previous breeding season. We were incredibly lucky that this individual hatched within sight of the bridge and that we saw it. I like to name my favorite birds and I named the first condor we saw here Charlie. This is not the chick of that adult, but Charlie Jr. still seemed like the perfect name. While we watched, it explored its surroundings, sunned its wings, and even flew a little! It was lots of fun to watch and share Charlie Jr. with others who came to enjoy the bridge :) Then, as if we could have been any luckier, a rainbow appeared over Marble Canyon! And then the sunset became more and more spectacular! We even ended up staying for the beginning of the star party, but the clouds that had made for such a spectacular sunset made for less than ideal viewing conditions. It didn't matter, the people there were wonderful and the 4 hour detour was absolutely worth it.
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September 2022
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