28 THE AUD U: BO NW Bey bake ees 
overhead until the sun was at its back, then made a tight turn very prettily 
and paused briefly. I suppose that this was an example of the curiosity trait. 
I think the distance was no more than 150 feet up, as indicated by the wing 
spread in my binocular, and the bird seemed lower, every detail perfectly 
clear. 
This happened in Tulare County, and I thought that I was seeing Condors 
considerably outside of the areas where they are usually reported. In this ] 
was mistaken. My wife, Dorothy, later showed me a July issue of Westways, 
publication of the Automobile Club of Southern California. Here was a long 
article on Condors, explaining that the birds fan out in the morning over a 
wide territory north and east of their reserve, including specifically the Por- 
terville-Visalia area. I was in a good spot, all right, a stretch of fenced cattle 
range between the rocky foothills above and a citrus belt below, with the birds 
on the return route to their Sespe headquarters in Ventura County. 
Stopping in a lunch room at the next road junction, I found that the 
proprietors had never seen the Condor nor heard of it locally. That is all to 
the good, but unfortunately I find that there are a lot of shooters in these wide 
open spaces. Most of them look for any kind of a moving target. 
Evidently the Condors range over a territory about 100 miles square, or 
10,000 square miles in area; with a population of forty birds, they are spread 
out pretty thin. The article I mentioned says that the birds rise high in the 
morning, at about eight o’clock, and return about four o’clock to their nests. 
The best chance of seeing them should be to watch for the return flight at 
low levels along a ridge, as for migrating hawks. 
907 Neptune Avenue, Encinitas, Calif. 92024 
ia ft ia a 
ILLINOIS NESTING RECORDS FOR 1965 ARE DUE 
By Mrs. Naomi McKinney 
All members who wish to see their 1965 nesting records published in 
the June 1966 issue of the AUDUBON BULLETIN should send in 
their reports NOW. I have not received very many reports as yet, and 
neither has the Illinois State Museum. If you need cards for sending 
in your reports of nesting birds in Illinois, write to me or to the 
Illinois State Museum in Springfield. Completed cards must be re- 
turned to me before May 1, 1966 to be included in the compilation of 
records for 1965. 
If you watch for hawk and owl nests, chances are that you have 
already begun your nesting observations for 1966. I will mail out 
cards on request to anyone who plans to accumulate nesting records 
through this spring and summer. These records, of course, need not 
be returned to me until after the summer nesting season is over. To 
participate in our Illinois Nesting Census, please write to me at the 
address below: 
222 South Hickery, Arthur, Illinois 61911 
