I was going through some older files looking for something and found this, so I thought I'd post it. It's a California condor at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, United States. The story of their rescue from near-extinction--there were only a few dozen left and all were captured for a captive-breeding program--and re-release into the wild is fascinating, and I won't go into it here of course! But as a result almost every California condor has great big wing tags. Although this one is sub-adult, I think it had them once and then they came off. Anyway, I love these huge birds, and I think the intelligent and curious expression as it looks at me reflects reality. They can live to be 70 or so and so they need to be clever. Canon 7D, Canon 400 f/5.6L, ISO 800, 1/2000 at f/5.6. (By the way, and for what it's worth, I think the new 100-400 is a much bigger upgrade over the old version than the Canon 7DII is over the 7D.)
The softness around the head and front of this magnificent creature detracts for me from a shot with great potential - but hard to nail these shots with the bird coming at a narrow angle towards you. Would love to see one of these myself one day and so very thankful for the massive conservation effort that was put into saving the species (I remember seeing a TV doco about it some time ago).
California condor
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