Here
is a picture of me, taken by my wife. We were visiting the Inner Harbor in
Baltimore, it was a very hot day, the ice tasted so good!
On
July 13, 2003 we visited the Grand Canyon. On a bus tour we stopped at
this scenic view and my wife took my picture. The canyon is really grand,
one of the wonders of the US and the World. It is very impressive, some of
its layers near the bottom date back 2 Billion years while the top layer dates
back 250 Million years. There I saw and photographed a Condor. I was
told these condors once vanished in the wild with only a few left at zoos.
A program to revive the California Condor is going on at this time.
Approximately 200 wild condors are known to be alive in the wild at this time, having
dwindled to zero not so long ago. It is so sad that one of the very few
and precious wild condors was shot
and killed in February 2003. To see a history of the California
Condor click
on this link. A most interesting set of Field Notes on the California
condor can be found on the this page:
http://hoppermountain.fws.gov/cacondor/allaboutcondors.html which also
contains much more interesting information on the California Condors.
As I was touring the Grand Canyon, I saw several California Condors, some
flew overhead. I took a picture of one of them with tag #32. These birds are vultures and grow to
a magnificent wing span of 9 to 10 ft. They are graceful in flight and do
not waver like the smaller turkey vultures.
Squirrels
of the Grand Canyon are different from the gray squirrels we have here in
Maryland. This one is a very friendly female who would eat food from
people's hands (not a good activity with any wild animals.) The Grand
Canyon is one of the places I would love to see again...