They must have known that Valentine's Day was coming.

On February 12, as we drove up Highway 1 to Big Sur and Monterey, Geno spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Two California condors were copulating by the side of the road!! Not even hesitating to interrupt the tryst, Geno pulled over and got out his camera.

The condors each wore a radio transmitter and an ID tag, so we were able to identify them as 8 and 68. After tolerating the growing crowd for a while, the condors flew off in search of a more secluded love nest.

Afterward, Geno e-mailed the › Ventana Wildlife Society to report the sighting. Sayre Flannigan, Wildlife Biologist, Species Recovery, responded: "Hi Geno, Thank you very much for contacting me. Condor 68 is a 9yr old male and 8 is a 7yr old female. They have been a pair for about 2 years but have yet to lay an egg. We have also observed them copulating this year and are hopeful they will nest."

For more information about the Big Sur condors, see the entertaining Smithsonian Magazine article › Becoming a Full-Fledged Condor.

Also, we recommend the book Condor by John Nielsen. It's a passionate account of the near extinction and ongoing recovery of this giant bird. We attended the author's lecture and reading in Santa Barbara in winter 2006.