Since 1900 and continuing today, the scientific journal Condor, named after the California condor, has been publishing significant information about birds. In this post I show some excellent photos of California condors from this publication, including the photo captions.
By chance, the 8 photos here are evenly split between the first and last quarters of the 20th century. Together, these photos capture aspects of the lives of California condors and humans’ sense of these birds.
(If the photo captions below are too small to read, click on the image to open a larger version.)
Photographer: P L Gedney. Source: Nesting of the condor on the slope of the Cuyamacas, San Diego Co, Cal. November-December 1900.
Photographer: H T Bohlman. Source: Frontispiece. November-December 1906.
This photo is a personal favorite:
Photographer: Finley and Bohlman. Source: Frontispiece. January-February 1908.
The next photo previously appeared on this blog but I am showing it again for 2 reasons. First, the version I showed previously came from the November 1950 issue of Audubon Magazine, decades after its publication in the Condor. Second, the version below includes a (lovely) caption.
Photographer: H T Bohlman and W L Finley. Source: Frontispiece. March-April 1908.
An electron microscope was utilized to create the set of 5 photos below. These compare recently-collected eggs with museum specimens to document the thinning of California condor eggshells due to exposure to the pesticide DDT.
Photographer: Uncredited. Source: Lloyd F Kiff, David B Peakall, and Sanford R Wilbur. Recent changes in California condor eggshells. May 1979.
Here is a photo that waited 4 decades to be published in the Condor:
Photographer: Ed N Harrison. Source: Harrison, Ed N, and Lloyd F Kiff. Apparent replacement clutch laid by wild California condor. August 1980.
The caption for the only color photo in this post originally appeared on the facing page (so I show this as 2 images):
Photographer: H Snyder. Source: Noel F R Snyder and Janet A Hamber. Replacement-clutching and annual nesting of California condors. August 1985.
Photographer: Uncredited. Source: Noel F R Snyder, Rob R Ramey, and Fred C Sibley. Nest-site biology of the California condor. Condor. May 1986.
All the scans above were made by me from the original journal issues in my library and are a good representation of the quality of the photos as published.
There are additional photos on this blog that were originally published in the Condor although they are not organized as in this post. To see these and many more photos of California condors, click the PHOTOGRAPHY button under POST TOPICS (somewhere on this screen).
The journal Condor was originally published by the Cooper Ornithological Club. For much more about this important organization and its journal, search “Cooper Ornithological Club” with this blog’s FIND CONTENT tool (somewhere on this screen).
A future post will present even more photos from the early days of the well-named journal Condor.
Pseudogryps 