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Condor Facts

Classification:	California Condor, Gymnogyps californianus, and a member of the family Cathartidae.
Range:	During the Pleistocene Era, which ended about 10,000 years ago, the condor's range extended across much of North America. When the pioneers arrived, condors ranged along the Pacific coast from British Columbia south through Baja California, Mexico. Lewis and Clark commented that condors were plentiful in the lower Columbia River. By 1940, the range was reduced to the coastal mountains of southern California. Today, condors are being reintroduced into the mountains of southern California, the central California coast and near the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
Habitat:	California Condors require large areas of remote country for foraging, roosting, and nesting. They roost on large trees or isolated rocky outcrops and cliffs. Nests are placed in isolated shallow caves and rock crevices. Foraging habitat includes open grasslands and oak savanna foothills that support populations of large mammals such as deer and cattle.
Description:	Males and females are similar in appearance. Adults have a mostly bald head and neck with the skin in shades of pink, red, orange, yellow, and light blue. Feathers are mostly black but the birds have white underwing linings. The California Condor has a wingspan of about 9.5 feet. The bird's beak is long, sharp, and powerful.
Life Span:	Scientists believe that condors in the wild may live up to the age of 40. Total life span, still unknown, may be as long as 60 years.
Breeding:	California Condors reach sexual maturity between 5 and 7 years of age. Males perform a highly ritualized courtship display in front of females. Graceful acrobatic flights between mates strengthen their bonds. Condor pairs stay together over successive seasons. A female will lay a single pale aqua-colored egg. Parents alternate in incubating the egg, each one often staying with the egg for up to several days at a time. The parents share duties in feeding and warming the chick. The chick is dependent on its parents for one to two years as it learns to forage and feed on its own.
Feeding:	Condors aren't hunters. They are carrion eaters preferring to feed on the carcasses of large mammals including deer, marine mammals, and cattle. A condor will eat its fill and then may not feed for several days. Condors find their food by sight or by following other scavenging birds.
Bathing:	Condors are fastidious birds. After eating, they bathe in rock pools and will spend hours preening and drying their feathers. If no water is available, they will clean their heads and necks by rubbing them on grass, rocks, or tree branches.
Flight:	Holding in a steady horizontal position, California Condors can soar on warm thermal updrafts for hours, reaching speeds of more than 55 miles per hour and altitudes of 15,000 feet. Flights up to 150 miles in a day have been recorded.
Playing:	Condors are highly intelligent, social birds. They are inquisitive and often engage in play. Immature birds will entertain themselves at length with feathers, sticks, and grass (e.g. tug-of-war, tossing, chasing, and retrieving the objects). This activity is especially pronounced around water holes.

Did you know...

...California Condors communicate by grunting and hissing? They do not have vocal cords so they make these sounds by forcing air through their bodies.
...California Condors inflate air sacs in their neck when agitated or excited? This makes them appear larger and more intimidating.
...California Condors reveal their emotions by changing their skin color?
...California Condors sometimes regurgitate their stomach contents when startled or scared?
...California Condors feed in a group where a strict dominance hierarchy is followed? Dominant birds usually eat first and take the choicest parts of the carcass. On average, condors consume two to three pounds of meat each time they eat.
...California Condors have powerful beaks? Their beaks are so powerful they can pierce the hide of a horse. They use their beak to touch, feel, and explore their surrounding. Sometimes condors use their beak to make better roosting and nesting sites.
...California Condors do not have talons? Unlike eagles and hawks, condor nails are more like toenails.
...California Condors defecate on their legs to help reduce core body temperature? This behavior is known as urohydrosis.
... California Condors are genetically more closely related to storks than to old world vultures?
...California Condor pairs will often produce another egg if an egg breaks or is preyed upon in just four to five weeks? This is known as "double clutching". In captivity, pairs may even "triple clutch" in one season.
...California Condor chicks may take one week to emerge from its shell?
...California Condor chicks are hatched with their eyes open?
...Oregon used to be part of the condor’s range? Native Americans used the image of the Thunderbird in art and in myths. Explorers Lewis and Clark as well as David Douglas recorded sightings of the huge birds in Oregon along the Columbia River.
...to join the condor recovery team, the Oregon Zoo received six birds from the Los Angeles Zoo, five from the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park, and one from the World Center for Birds of Prey (in Boise)?
...that once paired, California condors my take up to three years to begin breeding? Some of the birds sent to the Oregon Zoo were previously established pairs, while others were paired up after arrival.
...flight cages at the breeding facility are 30 feet high, 30 feet wide and 50 feet long? Each flight cage is attached to an indoor shelter where the condors will feed, nest and roost. Construction on expansions and a pre-release flight area began in Spring 2005 and was completed in Fall 2005.
...to start, the condors will raise their own chicks? Eventually keepers hope pairs will produce two eggs per year—the first taken and raised by keepers, the second raised by the condors.

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