Free Bird

This photo, taken about a hundred miles north of San Francisco from the Pacific Coast Highway, is special to me.  Not only did the waves, foam and soaring bird cooperate to make a nice composition, but it's one of the very few pics I've taken of a California condor, the largest flying bird in North America. Their wings may stretch nearly 10 feet from tip to tip.  

The California Condor is hopefully in the midst of becoming a success story.  After nearly becoming extinct, all wild individuals were captured and bred.  Eventually they were reintroduced in the coastal areas of California and Baja California, as well as mountainous regions of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah.  It is still considered "critically endangered," but the hope is for a complete recovery.

The next time you spot an extremely large vulture soaring in those sections of the country, you just might be looking at a California condor.  Enjoy its majesty.

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