In April 2014 I (Phil) went on a "birdathon" trip, part of a fundraiser for Golden Gate Audubon Society (anyone who wanted to go on the trip is supposed to raise at least $500, although they cut you some slack if you miss the mark). Pinnacles is a bit far for a day trip from Berkeley --- about 3 hours drive each way --- so I had never been there before. Beautiful place, though heavily visited

Richard, the guy on the left in the vest, is a volunteer with the California Condor recovery project. He came along for part of the trip and told us lots of great stuff. Rusty Scalf, the trip leader, is behind him in the blue shirt. 

We saw our first (and only) California Condor before getting out of the car!

Condors were down to the last 22 individuals in the world before the recovery program started in the late 1980s. There are a couple hundred in the wild now. Without constant work they would be wiped out again: when they eat remains left by hunters they ingest lead shot and bullet fragments, which poisons them. Twice a year, every condor is trapped and tested, and if their lead level is too high they are taken in for treatment. The solution is to get hunters to stop using lead shot…and FINALLY, after years of the NRA successfully fighting a forced switch to copper, California is banning lead shot (the ban starts next year I think). I'm afraid hunters will simply import it from other states.

Talk about a face only a mother could love. And look at those talons. Really, this bird looks like Death incarnate…which is fitting, I guess, for an obligate scavenger.

Condors are huge. I'm tall and my arm-span is even longer than my height, but this guy has me beat by several feet.    You can see the radio transmitter on his wing 

At the start of the trip we also got a look at some acorn woodpeckers. These gregarious, clownish-looking birds cooperate to create a "granary tree", in which they drill holes to store acorns.

Same photo as the previous, cropped so you can see the acorns in some of the holes.

The group hiked up the trail, looking at birds, wildflowers, and geologic features as we went. Rusty Scalf, the trip leader, is a really good naturalist.

The yellow thread-like stuff is a type of dodder, a parasitic plant that feeds off the stems and leaves of its host. The orange flowers are Indian Paintbrush, a parasitic plant that feeds off the roots of the host. This host plant is really getting it from both sides.

I love the fractal look of the trees and bushes on this hillside. Almost impossible to judge scale, isn't it?

The park has lots of drought-tolerant species like Blue Oak, but there has just enough rain over the winter to green them up

After the rest of the group turned back, another participant and I continued along a loop up to the ridge top. It had some steep sections like this, plus some other somewhat difficult bits. But man, there were a lot of people out there…dozens and dozens on this moderately strenuous 6-mile loop. If you go to the park, go on a weekday.

Up near the top, we hung out for an hour and a half with Rose, an intern with the Condor project. Every fifteen minutes or so, she cycled through the frequencies of all of the condor transmitters and recorded direction and signal strength. 

Here's one of the pinnacles for which the park is named. Note the people at the bottom right. These are pretty cool geologic features.

We hung out waiting for condors to show up in the thermals, and were hopeful when the sun came out and lots of turkey vultures and ravens started soaring around, but alas, no condors showed up for us.

It's a beautiful place, and I'll go again. But not on a busy weekend.