New Condor Behavior Caught on Camera

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April 2019 - California condor nesting season is well underway in Pinnacles National Park. This year, three separate pairs are nesting in the park, and biologists have a video camera on one of the nests. This camera is proving to be an incredible tool. It is also recording condor behavior that has never been observed before.

The pair using the nest with the video camera are male 589 and female 569. They nested in the same cavity two years ago and successfully fledged a young condor. This breeding season, the video camera captured both birds beginning to inspect the nest cave back in October. By late January 569 had laid an egg. Everything was going well with both parents trading out incubating the egg. Then, in mid-February, an intruder bachelor male, condor 431, entered the nest, performed a mating display to 569, and likely ejected the egg. This kind of behavior in a nest had never before been recorded in the wild.

For the next month, biologists watched 431 continue to pursue 569 and attempt to lure her away from 589. Again, the video captured an interesting event when the two males engaged in a prolonged fight while the female stood by observing. From what could be ascertained by later observations, 589 was the victor and 431 left the nest territory. A couple of weeks after the skirmish, on March 26th, 569 laid another egg in the same nest cavity, and she and 589 returned to sharing incubation duties. If everything goes well this time, there should be a new condor hatchling by the end of May!

For more information about the Pinnacles Condor Program, please contact Alacia Welch.

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