Condors in the north

In small town in central illinois,sometime in the mid-90's,around mid july.I was awestick at the sight of a bird so large it made a turkey buzzard look like a sparrow.50 feet from the ground and about 200 feet away when i first spotted it. IT must have been at its lowest point at that time ,because it disapeared behind some trees.When i went to a clearing for a better look it must have been at least 1000 feet high it kept circleling untill finally it headed west.I could see it for at least 7 miles and during the whole incedent it did not flap its wings once. I estimated a wing span of 14 feet.this seems extrem I admit but my real question is could condor from mexico or south america come this far north?



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[edit on 24-7-2007 by 12m8keall2c]

[edit on 24-7-2007 by blackdeer]

California Condors are very rare birds and are still quite endangered despite the breeding programs that they have been working on for several years. Each and every Condor in the US is tracked and looked after. They live in specific areas and Illinois is not one of them.

Unless someone somehow smuggled an Andean Condor up from South America, and then let it go, I doubt it was a condor that you saw. California Condors, the largest flying land bird in the US, have a wing span of about 9-1/2 feet, so your perception of a 14 foot wingspan must be erroneous. Sometimes it can be quite difficult to make accurate size estimates. 14 feet is even bigger than the Andean Condors wingspan. The Albatross has the largest wingspan of any bird at a bit over 11 feet, but they are seafaring birds and would never be found inland near Illinois.

Perhaps it could have been an Eagle, either a Golden, or perhaps Bald eagle as they have a wingspan of about 7 feet. I'm not sure what else it could have been as you claim it wasn't a Turkey Vulture.

Keep your eyes to the skies and perhaps you will see it again and get a better look.

There are few details I left out for brevity,one being that it had been a hot dry summer.we were in some pretty heavy doldrums.we needed a weather change very badly.I had been tracking a storm front that had come up through mexico,oklahoma into the mississippi river valley. that after noon hundredc of towering clouds came marching from the southwest across the plains. One theory that i have heard is that they rode these massive updrafts to find new sources of food

Not something a Condor would do. As I said, the California condors, the few that there are, are very carefully monotored.

A weather system would not induce them to leave their territory to such a great extent. The same is doubly so for Andean Condors who live in another continent.

While a condor may drift a bit from it's usual stomping ground, traveling half way across the nation, or to another continent, is not something that would happen even if it was a major hurricane. Condors stick to a very defined territory and no storm system would change that to any great extent. Illinois is way off.

More info:It was some years later that i was telking to a group of people and was telling this story when one guy spoke up and told of an incedent in the late 70's(I think)when he and his playmates were in the backyard of his Lawndale illinois home when a giant bird tried to grab his friend his mother witnessed this also.Then I rememered this happenig it was big news and made the local papers. Of course every body made fun of it .It can be found by searching "big bird in illinios'.

Historically, condors ranged across the SW U.S. and in recent years some experimental re-introductions into Arizona were made. Could one have drifted off course across to Texas then north into Illinois? Possible, but highly unlikely.

Accurate estimates of the size and distance of aerial objects is very difficult, even for experienced pilots and trained observers. It may have been a smaller bird that appeared larger as you misjudged its altitude. There is no frame of reference against an open sky to make comparisons and the brain simply makes a 'guesstimate' of the distance and assigns a size accordingly.

Also, the account is now 10 years old. Confabulation cannot be ruled out.

More ommited info;As for scale comparitives ,it flew between me and some grain elevators that were several hundred yards away and there wre many trees around that helped judge scale.but the key to me me was that i was with a friend whos family are avid outdoorsmans and hunters and they have an uncanny ability to spot game and judge size ,wieght and distance.On top of that he is a falconer and has an extensive knowledge of birds.Just as i had the ridiculas thought that this bird had a 14 foot wing span he said"If i didnt know better i would say that it has wingspan of 15 feet"At about that moment it was joined by another bird.possibaly its mate.Its wingspan was at least two feet shorter..it actualy came closer to the discription of an andean condor.

I see so first you saw it and it flew away and then after some speculation about the size estimation you made of the bird you were out there suddenly with friends and the bird had also a mate and your friends were excelent at estimating such things and you actually saw it in a spot where you could estimate it size very accurately and so on...

Sigh.

Qustion what i believe i saw.give me info pro or con,but i think you misunderstood my method of presentation.I agree with every thing ive read so far.the same comments i would have for this post.soon i will give an analytical conclusian that is relative to this web siteand the battle against ignorance.

Let me take this a step farther.What are the cons ine regards to the ledgenary thunderbirds.could this be what i saw?ok why not?

I believe that you probably saw a tremendously large bird. Whether its named condor or thunderbird doesnt matter to me personaly, i find it fascinating that birds of this size, are still around.

Maybe you could stalk the place where you saw it the first time, and put bait out there or something, along with yourself and a camera. I'm sorry if I missed it but what time of day was it?

Somewhat afternoon.

There are many stories from especially the Alton and Grafton areas of Illinois as well as other places in central Illinois about these "thunderbirds". The most famous being The Piasa Bird. There are lots of stories and tales, but zero concrete proof. The problem with the Piasa legend is that everyone has a different version of it.

Don't know what you saw, but doing some searching about the Piasa bird might help you draw your own conclusions.

The piasa search yielded interesting results.I found stories that matched what i saw.Now i dont feel quite so alone.thanks for the referance.

If indeed this was a thunderbird tihis is my theory of how it got here.heat and vapor from at least mexico cause giant updrafts that move north easternly to illinoi's mississippi valley and these giant birds took advantage of these updrafts to easily to glide effortlessly to glide to this location.though im clueless as to how they got bsck.