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Recently, East Bay skies were once again graced with visiting condors—the latest indication that their late-summer range is expanding north.

GPS data revealed that on September 17, juvenile condors #1060 and #1191 flew north and spent the evening in the mountains just south of San Antonio Reservoir in Sunol Wilderness Regional Preserve, then returned south the following afternoon.

This East Bay visit, like many others, might have gone under the radar without sufficient GPS tracking—thankfully, Save Mount Diablo has so far been able to fund 60 GPS units for the Pinnacles National Park condor recovery program.

Along with identifying wing tags, GPS has been a great tool to monitor the health and travels of the recovering condor population.

Both of these adventurous condors came from the central California flock. Condor #1060 is a four year-old male, who was hatched at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and released at Pinnacles National Park in November 2022.

Condor #1191 is a two year-old female who was hatched at the Oregon Zoo and was among the most recent Pinnacles releases last December.

The captive breeding program is essential to increasing the size of the central California flock.

This October, Ventana Wildlife Society and the Pinnacles condor recovery program released a combined total of 13 young condors, all of whom hatched last year in 2024.

Adding those to the five chicks who hatched from wild nests this year increased the flock to an all-time high of 119 condors.

Condors are highly social, and often fly together in small groups. Because fewer than half the condors in the region wear GPS units, exactly how many condors make these trips to the East Bay is unclear.

In fact, an unidentified adult condor was photographed nearby at Sunol Wilderness Regional Preserve during the most recent flight, indicating there may have been more than two condors in the East Bay that day.

If you do see a condor, head color is an easy way to distinguish adults from juveniles: adults feature colorful orange heads, while young condors have dark heads that become mottled as they age.

By five years, condors have their adult coloration. However, they rarely breed at that age; most are at least six before they begin nesting, and many don’t nest until they are several years older.

Mated pairs, especially those with active nests, tend to remain close to home. However, juveniles, like #1060 and #1191, and unpaired adults are especially likely to explore because they have no nesting territories.

These explorations can be lengthy: condors can soar from San Benito County to Alameda County in under two hours if they choose, and easily cover more than 150 miles in a day.

Increased condor presence in the East Bay could be tied to a seasonal shift in range use that began in earnest in 2020.

That’s when condors began frequenting the mountains east of Hollister and along Pacheco Pass in increasing numbers from summer through mid-fall, then returning to their home territories each winter.

This year, more condors have been visiting along the western front of the Diablo Range between Coyote Reservoir and Anderson Reservoir.

As condors become more familiar with those areas, and as the population continues to grow, it’s likely that exploratory flights to the East Bay will become more and more common. Who knows how many we may see next year?

Conservation biologist Joseph Belli and Communications and Advocacy Intern Emily Sherwood contributed to this blog post.