Condor!!

[Julie Van Moorhem <jvanmoo at sisna dot com>]

Pomera and I birded the St. George area this weekend and had good 
sightings!  We headed up to Kolob Reservoir on Friday afternoon looking 
for Zone-tailed Hawks and California Condors.  Partway up we saw a guy 
with binoculars pulled over to the side of the road so we pulled up 
beside him and boy were we lucky to meet Frank Nebenburgh who works 
with the Peregriine Fund.  He was tracking the condors with radio 
telemetry and said he'd seen one at Lava Point and knew there were nine 
in the area.  So we asked if we could follow him as he drove up the 
road.  To make it short, we went all the way to the north end of Kolob 
Road beyond the reservoir to the point where the road forks and the 
left fork goes to Cedar City (home-made sign on the fence).  We got out 
and he soon located a condor to the west and pretty quick it came up 
high enough to get great looks--the white markings on the under side of 
the wing were phenomenal.  We watched it for a good while.  Many thanks 
to Frank!!!

Then we came back back to to the reservoir and headed down toward St. 
George.  About 1/2 to 1 mile below the reservoir we found a group of 
Turkey Vultures with two Zone-tailed Hawks with them.  The Zone-taileds 
were flying real low and staying in a relatively small area--one even 
came down and landed in the pasture (it's a great pasture on the right 
as you come down from the reservoir--lots of grass, some marshy area 
and a creek).  We watched them for probably 15 minutes or more.  What a 
great way to start a birding trip!!

Other highlights of the trip included a Green Heron at Southgate golf 
course; a Greater Roadrunner, Goshawk, Pinyon Jays and Wild Turkey on 
the road to Oak Grove Campground; Blue Grosbeak family, great looks at 
a low-flying-circling Common Black Hawk, and Bell's Vireo at Lytle 
Preserve.  We saw most of the common birds for the area.

The only negative on the trip came from some little bugs at Oak Grove 
Campground--we aborted the bird quest after about 45 minutes of 
fighting these little guys.  They weren't biting but they hung around 
your face and body--I was pishing at the birds and I think I swallowed 
one (that'll teach him/her!)

It will forever be a very memorable trip -- an awesome last visit to 
St. George.

Good birding y'all,
Julie Van Moorhem



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