Wednesday, June 21, 2006

2 Weeks with the Condors...

So I´ve just spent 2 weeks looking at Condors at a big old ranch-farm type place called Estancia Perito Moreno. It is owned by some uber rich Swiss guy who made his money in Chocolate. (True story). He runs a few sheep and cows on the place, but his main interest is keeping it as a game preserve. He comes out from Switzerland for 10 days every year to go a-deer huntin´.

The estancia is a special place because it contains a bunch of condoreras. In the winter the condors move out of the Andes and come down onto the Cordillera where they sit out the worst of the weather. We monitored the condor numbers and some aspects of their behaviour from hides setup near these condoreras.















So here I am sitting in one of the hides.
(It´s very cold.)
A few days after this photo was taken the big rains came and flooded the hide.
Yuk.