Wayward California condor N8, photographed near Cortez on April 16, has turned up in Los Alamos, N.M.
According to the Sante Fe New Mexican newspaper, Los Alamos birder Joe Fitzgibbon saw the bird in his backyard on April 24.
Fitzgibbon saw the radio transmitter and the bird’s “N8” tag and recognized it as the condor spotted south of Dolores by bird enthusiast Franz Carver.
In February, Grand Canyon National Park officials lost track of the condor and feared it was dead.
At one time, condors flew across much of North America, but by 1982, only 22 captive condors survived, according to The Peregrine Fund, which tracks and monitors the birds. Now there are an estimated 400 in the wild or in captivity, about 70 in the Grand Canyon area.
N8 was hatched in captivity in the San Diego Wild Animal Park and released into the wild in February.
Chris Parish, of The Peregrine Fund, told The Cortez Journal last week that young birds such as 2-year-old N8 often wander in the spring when winds can take them long distances.