Male Condor Knocks Mate Off Cliff During Courtship Display

The adult condors on our new California Condor cam broadcasting from Southern California put on a show for us over the weekend! After arriving to the nest area together, they moved out toward the rocky edge, whereupon the male stretched out his wings and began performing a courtship display called the “wing-out” display for the female. He was so enthusiastic that she ran out of room and had to fly off, with him in hot pursuit.

Wing-out courtship displays are seen most frequently in the late fall, winter, and early spring, and usually involve males displaying to females with a characteristic posture in which the head is extended forward and drooped and the wings are extended but drooped at their tips, combined with ritualized strutting of the legs up and down, as the male sways back and forth and circles around his mate on the ground or atop a boulder in an irregular fashion. In situations where such circling is not possible, as on the limb of a tree or inside a confined nest cave, the circling aspect of the display is omitted. During display, the air sacs of the male are commonly, but not always, inflated, maximizing the apparent size of the bird and size of colored bare parts. Even when not inflated, the loose skin of the gular and neck regions hangs in folds and conspicuously exposes the skin color of these regions.

Curiously, the wing-out display posture, with the head extended forward and drooped and with the wings extended but drooped at their tips, is sometimes closely approximated by adults in feeding their young. This resemblance might conceivably be an indication of the origins of the courtship display. However, courtship feeding of female adults by male adults has not been observed in condors, either in the context of the wing-out display or in any other context.