Under the Wings of the Condors: A Photo Story

It was just before five in the morning. The páramo, and the sky above, were still lit only by thousands of stars. High in the Ecuadorian Andes, the nights are cold. And the fact that the equator lies just 50 kilometers away changes nothing about that. Here, on the Earth’s longest line of latitude, life follows a strict routine: The sun rises at six o’clock in the morning and sets twelve hours later, every single day of the year. For those twelve hours, the sun reigns supreme in the sky. The only creature capable of eclipsing its brilliance is the Andean Condor.

This giant of the avian world has inspired reverence in people since time immemorial. Pre-Columbian cultures revered it as an essential part of their mythology. For the Inca people, the condor was a sacred bird, a messenger connecting the upper world with the earthly realm. Its enormous figure can still be seen in the famous Nazca lines. And today, its broad-winged silhouette adorns the coats of arms of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and even Venezuela, where the species now teeters on the edge of extinction. In much of South America, it remains a national bird.

Not that all our traditions are positive for the condor. It saddens me that even now, if you happen to be in parts of southern Peru in July, you might stumble upon a Yawar Fiesta, or “Blood Festival.” A rather brutal tradition in which a wild-caught condor, symbolizing the Inca people, is force-fed alcohol and tied to the back of a bull, representing the Spanish conquistadors. A matador then provokes both terrified animals into a struggle in an arena or the town square. If the condor survives, it’s set free, though of course, it doesn’t always.

But this isn’t a story about people. Let’s return to the wild, free condors.

That morning, with the stars clear overhead, we set out after these majestic birds in the bed of a pickup truck. Our camera backpacks and tripods jostled around at our feet as we bounced through the predawn chill. Our destination was a 250-meter-high cliff lining the northeastern shore of Lake Secas, not far from the snow-covered Antisana Volcano (5,753 m). By the time our pickup reached the muddy track through the grassy páramo slopes, the sky was beginning to pale.

Not far from the cliff, in a sea of wind-blown grass, the truck came to a stop. The road ended here. Before us stretched vast views of a sparsely populated farming landscape, high-altitude páramo, and surrounding volcanoes. Sincholagua, Atacazo, Pasochoa, and a string of other peaks towering well above 4,000 meters framed a natural amphitheater, where—at any moment now—the performance we had traveled halfway around the world to see would begin.

At dawn, the Andean Condors, having spent the night on inaccessible rocky ledges, would take to the air on their daily search for food. On wings that can span up to 3.3 meters, they soar for hours, scanning the landscape with keen eyes for the carcasses they rely on. Thanks to the immense surface area of their wings—unmatched in the avian world—they can cover hundreds of kilometers in a day, often without a single wingbeat, riding thermal currents and mountain winds.

Yet, despite their size, condors can easily slip from human sight in these vast mountains. And if you’re lucky enough to spot them on your travels, odds are they’ll appear as tiny specks, drifting from one valley to the next. To truly see them up close, at eye level, you need to catch them at dawn as they leave their roosts or at dusk when they return.

The dew-soaked páramo grass clung to our trousers as we pushed our way through it. Ecuadorian Hillstars and Black Flowerpiercers were already busy sipping nectar from the orange blossoms of Chuquiragua shrubs. A narrow path led us along a small ridge to the very edge of the cliff, ending at a trampled patch of earth that dropped off into sheer rock. Nearby, a stream cascaded into a waterfall below us. A misplaced step here, and the condors wouldn’t have to search far for their next meal.

We hadn’t even unpacked our cameras or extended our tripods when the first adult condor swept past us. It was close—less than twenty meters away. In this mystical landscape, it looked every bit the legend it is. It slid through the air with grace and dignity, skimming the cliff’s edge before disappearing behind us. The white panels on its wings etched themselves into our memory, though sadly not onto a memory card.

A few more condors had evidently left before sunrise, and the area no longer had the subjects we were hoping to photograph. Many years ago, a friend of mine put it well: “Out here, it’s either the birds or the light—you rarely get both.”

And so it was this morning. A handful of condors still circled high overhead, but it was only a matter of time before the strengthening thermals would carry them off in search of something freshly deceased. And photographing black silhouettes against the sky? Not much room for creative composition there.

What could we do? We’d lost this round, and so we returned with our cards empty. But already, in the back of my mind, a plan for a rematch was taking shape. It seemed to me that the stream near us, which turned into a waterfall below, could become an excellent backdrop at sunset. It was in the perfect spot to receive the last rays of the sun—so, too, was the cliff on which we now stood. We simply needed to find a spot from which to photograph it.

So, we adjusted our plan. By three o’clock, we were once again standing on the bed of a pickup, crawling up the familiar road toward the top of the cliff. This time, instead of setting up near the waterfall, we decided to go a bit farther. It only took a couple of jumps over narrow creeks, a careful crossing of soggy patches, and a bit of weaving through low shrubs to reach a different vantage point further along the U-shaped cliff.

What we saw from the new overlook took our breath away. As the bushes parted, an enchanted world opened up beneath us. It felt like we’d stumbled into The Lord of the Rings. We were now almost directly opposite the waterfall, standing on the tip of a rocky outcrop. The sense of depth and isolation was magnified by the fact that we were on a kind of peninsula, surrounded on three sides by a sheer abyss. The view alone would have been spectacular, even if there hadn’t been a single condor or bird in sight. But there was!

We had arrived just in time. Several condors were already perched on the cliffside ledges. For a moment, I feared the show might be over, but luckily I was wrong. One young condor was using the mist of the waterfall as a natural shower, repeatedly diving into the cascading spray and then drying its soaked feathers in the sun, wings outstretched like a great, sun-drenched cross.

All around us, smaller raptors known as Carunculated Caracaras filled the sky. At one point, I counted almost twenty of them wheeling overhead—a number I had never seen together before! These mountain acrobats share the high-altitude landscape with the condors and, like them, had come to settle on the rocky ledges for the night. They flew very differently from the condors: rapid wingbeats, with sudden changes of direction and altitude. It was a lively contrast to the steady, majestic glide of the Andean kings.

Along with them, a large Black-chested Buzzard-Eagle, a slightly smaller juvenile Variable Hawk, and a tiny American Kestrel streaked past our elevated lookout. It was as if the Andes themselves were trying to make up for the morning’s letdown by offering up everything from their raptor arsenal. Five species of birds of prey at 3,700 meters? That’s something you’ll find only here, in the tropical Andes.

Two condors, likely a mother with her grown offspring, exchanged gentle touches. By the way, parental care lasts an exceptionally long time in condors. Incubation of a single egg takes nearly two months, and the chick then remains on the nest for another half-year before it’s even capable of flight. Parents continue to care for their offspring until about two years of age, when their attention shifts to the next egg, and the whole cycle begins again.

As fascinating as it was to watch the condors perched on the cliffs, the real emotion ignites when they spread their monstrous wings and take to the air. There’s something about their flight that makes it almost impossible to look away. In the human observer, it stirs some ancient, atavistic mix of admiration and reverence. Watching a condor in flight awakens the same primal chord as the crackling of a fire or the roar of a waterfall. There’s something raw, elemental, almost prehistoric about it. No wonder the Inca placed these airborne giants among their pantheon of gods.

A thought crossed my mind. The young birds I was photographing—easily recognized by their overall brown plumage—will likely still be soaring these skies years after I’m gone. Andean Condors, together with large parrots and albatrosses, belong among the longest-living birds in the world. Some individuals can live as long as a human. If they manage to avoid poisoning from lead bullets in animal carcasses, heavy metals, or pesticides, they have no natural predators in adulthood. They should still be here to witness the world many decades from now.

We often lack a proper sense of scale when watching birds gliding through the sky. It’s hard to tell if a bird is small or simply far away. But with a condor, it’s a different story. Its movement, combined with the silhouette of its wingtips slightly upturned in a fan-like curve, hints at its true size. Even more so when it flies directly toward you, steadily growing in your viewfinder, until its enormous wings spill beyond the frame, and you find yourself staring into the curious eyes of a bird that confidently soars past you, fully aware of its dominion over this ancient landscape.

We spent about three hours on that cliff. Time had never flown faster. The sun gradually sank somewhere behind the Atacazo volcano on the far side of the wide Inter-Andean valley. At one point, it slipped behind a large cloud, the light dimmed, and it seemed as if it was time to pack up the cameras and clear out. But between the lower edge of the cloud and the horizon, there remained a narrow gap, hinting that if we were lucky, the sun might break through one last time.

And so it did.

For a brief moment, the landscape around us was bathed in gorgeous golden light. Sunbeams streaming from beneath the cloud’s edge illuminated the rocky peaks and the pasture where cows were slowly making their way home after a day of grazing. To complete the scene, three Caracaras appeared above the horizon.

More than at any other moment that day, this was the time to switch the exposure to full manual. The wings of the passing Caracaras and condors, catching the sun’s final rays, stood in stark contrast to the valley below, already surrendering to the rule of night. The light during those 15 or 30 minutes was nothing short of perfect.

Photography here was far from easy. Most of the condors had already settled onto their evening perches, leaving the skies around us to the Caracaras. They moved like unruly children resisting bedtime, their activity peaking in a frantic, chaotic burst. At times, it was genuinely difficult to lock onto a single bird. When a Caracara flew into the shadow, both the autofocus and my own eye struggled to track it. But as soon as it rose into the last sunlight, its wings blazed against the darkened backdrop like a phoenix reborn.

The entire time, I’d been hoping to capture a Condor or a Caracara flying in front of the waterfall. Especially now, in these last precious minutes of daylight! And just before I gave up, another young Caracara swooped by. I caught it in the viewfinder, tracked it, and as it approached the waterfall, I pressed the shutter. At that exact moment, an adult joined in, and they met right in front of the falling curtain of water. Then the moment vanished.

I had a feeling that, just before the two birds appeared in front of the waterfall, I hadn’t focused properly. My heart was pounding as I scrolled through the entire burst, frame by frame.

Out of focus. Out of focus. Out of focus.

And then—there it was. At the precise moment the young Caracara spread its sunlit wings, the autofocus of my Z9 found its footing again, and I nailed the shot.

This is what I love about photography—especially bird photography. That sense of tension, total concentration, and the flood of reward when everything clicks into place. It’s nothing more than the ancient hunter inside me. And really, what could be more satisfying than fulfilling some deep, prehistoric need? Again, something raw, something primal, like the Condor itself.

A few minutes later, the sun slipped below the horizon, and all of us who had spent those last hours up on the cliff began to drift back. Not physically—that would come soon enough—but mentally. You could see it on everyone’s faces: we had all just experienced something genuinely rare. It felt as though we were waking from a dream.

It was time to leave. The beautiful red glow of the land blinked out, the sun’s final light reflected by scattered clouds. And to top it all off, it felt as though we’d stepped back a few decades—or maybe even centuries—in time.

Next to our pickup truck stood a pair of horses, and beside them, two cowhands, father and son. While the father had spent the afternoon with us, the son had been tasked with roping and saddling the horses. Now, in the quickly falling tropical night, both of them disappeared into the sea of swaying grass on the Andean páramo. Good night, Andes.