California Condors

The California Condor chick sits on the ledge at the bottom while Mom and Dad sit up above.

While in Zion National Park in October 2019, I took the shuttle bus towards the end of the canyon. At the next to last stop, the driver announced that there was a ranger with a scope who was looking at a family of California Condors. My wife in I were on our way to hike the Narrows, but I made a mental note to come back and bring my camera with the 500mm lens and 2x teleconverter. That evening we went back and saw the Condor chick sitting on a ledge on the canyon wall - about 1/4 up the 2000’ face. After a short time the father came soaring into the canyon and slowly made his way down to feed the chick.

The Condor has a 9-1/2’ wingspan and looks majestic as it soars in the thermal currents near the cliff. The chick at this point is almost as large. Several decades ago there were only 22 Condors left in the world. After capturing them and running a breeding program there are now about 400 Condors - and here are almost 1% of them.

I noticed that the Condor’s shadow was showing up from time to time on the canyon wall as the condor glided down to the chick. I patiently followed the condor with my camera hoping that the shadow would fall into the same frame as the Condor. My wish came true and I got this photo.

This is an overview of what we were looking at and the arrow shows where the chick was sitting. The canyon wall above the arrow is where the adult Condor was flying and casting its shadow. You can see the zoom achieved with a 1000mm lens equivalent.