Old condor

I don't think I knew until yesterday that birds can live to be more than 40 years old. A prolific California condor, though, will turn 43 this year.

Further, California condors may be the most amazing birds in North America--9-foot wingspan, bizarre appearance, awesome canyon-riddled habitat. Thankfully, condors were saved when only nine were left in the wild in the late 1980s. Now there are 322 total, wild and captive. It's nice to picture them soaring over the chaparral somewhere way out West.