When the Big Year was proposed, Lynn and I knew we would need to put Pinnacles National Park near Soledad, CA, on the list of destinations. Quantity of birds was not the goal, although that would be nice, rather it was all about adding a California Condor to our list. In April of 2016 we visited the park for the first time. Only after leaving the park and zooming in on one photo of a large bird high up in the sky did we confirm we had seen a Condor. For a species down to a worldwide population of 22 in the 1980’s we were overjoyed to know we had seen one. This trip, we departed Ventura (relatively) early Wednesday and started hiking the Juniper Canyon Trail towards the High Peaks just before noon. Within minutes we saw a large bird soaring over the peaks in the distance. Lynn via her binoculars and me via a quick photo (I could zoom in on in camera) confirmed it was a condor. We were so happy, the trip was guaranteed a “success”. And it only got better and better. Early morning and early evening are when the condors are usually most active, but just past mid-day a condor with the tag “Purple 92” circled above us a few times. One pass was so low it started in the distance at our eye level, came straight towards us and then gained altitude to soar above us. I had to zoom OUT in order to try and retain it in my viewfinder as I tracked it. It eventually headed to a perch on a rocky ledge on a neighboring peak. So awesome. Our first day ended near 5:00pm, and when we turned around to enjoy a large moon rising above the peaks we saw the sky above the peaks full of soaring birds, most of them (we counted 9 at one time) California condors. Our hearts soared with them.
If you are interested in more images, below is a link to our album of edited bird photos from our two days at Pinnacles: https://deanryanphotography.smugmug.com/Wildlife/2021-02-24-25-Pinnacles-National-Park/n-4rc4qB/
We kept alert for other birds of course, and were rewarded with some new ones for our list (see below), as well as some familiar ones. We couldn’t get good photos of them all, the little tricksters, but with blurry photos and Lynn’s good spotting and descriptions we could confirm identities for: two Steller’s Jays, a Hutton’s Vireo (we think), Fox Sparrows, a Red-breasted Sapsucker and some White-breasted Nuthatches.
Thank you Pinnacles NP, and all the people who helped, and continue helping, the condors and all birds.
Dean
The Big Year 2021 