Jango, a Belgian Malinois, and Rocky, a German shepherd, have stood up to armed criminals for years with no protection.

Until now.

A ninth-grader from Shaler has raised $5,000 to purchase bulletproof vests for the two pooches, as well as for two other trained dogs that work for the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office.

“This is important. If a police dog is shot, it’s like a police officer losing a partner,” said Amanda Platt, 15, who attends Shaler Area Intermediate School.

Amanda began raising money three years ago. She has helped buy $825 vests for six police dogs, including dogs in Ross and Franklin Park. The sheriff’s dogs received their vests last month.

“She is a very determined young lady who cares a lot about dogs. We are very grateful,” said Acting Sheriff William Mullen, who presented Amanda with a plaque Wednesday. “We struggle with the budget, so this is a great help.”

Amanda isn’t finished. She wants to buy vests for the six Allegheny County Police dogs.

She was inspired to raise money for the vests when she read “Chicken Soup for the Pre-Teen Soul,” a book of stories about youths that included an account of how a California girl, Stephanie Taylor, raised money for police dog vests.

“I have had a dog every year of my life, so I liked this girl’s idea,” Amanda said.

Her mother, Donna Platt, said Amanda has a soft spot for dogs.

“She always cried when dogs were hurt in movies. She still does,” Donna Platt said.

To raise the money, Amanda asked classmates for small contributions and contacted businesses with fliers and letters. She sometimes was surprised by generous replies. Duquesne Light Co., for example, donated $1,000.

“We expected maybe a couple hundred dollars,” Amanda said.

Bob Chambers, a K-9 police officer with the sheriff’s office, said he’s thrilled to have the vests.

“My dogs go into felony arrest warrants with no protection. People often have all kinds of weapons in these situations,” Chambers said.

None of the sheriff’s dogs has been killed in the line of duty. But in September, a Polk County Sheriff’s deputy and his canine partner were killed.

“These dogs are my best friends. They are like my children,” Chambers said.

A little aquatic bird without name has piqued the A. MUSTAFFA BABJEE, so he has turned two years of and recording into a documentary for nature lovers.

WHAT partly inspired me to devote two years of study on a little aquatic bird was that it had no Malay name.

My journey took me to villages close to habitats where wild aquatic birds could be found and I learnt from the villagers the local name of this bird — Little Grebe (Tachybaptus ruficollis).

The majority of the villagers said it is the chick, or young one of the “Belibis” or Whistling Teal (Dendrocynia javanica).

The rest said they have not seen or noticed the Little Grebe. One of the reasons that they thought the Grebe is the progeny of the Belibis is because these two totally unrelated species share the same habitat and the Little Grebe (25cm) is almost half the size of the Belibis (41cm).

The other reason is probably due to my theory that the Grebe is a recent introduction to peninsular Malaysia, migrating from Bengal east and southwards in the early 20th century. Abandoned tin mines exposed to the forces of nature became suitable habitats to attract the Little Grebe and a number of other species.

The Grebes, as a group, are very unique as they have no close relatives that share their characteristics. The ancestors of the Grebes diverged from the main stream of bird evolution at least more than 55 million years ago.

At a distance, the Little Grebe appears like a little duck but on closer examination, it has a pointed bill, is almost tailless and does not have webbed feet like ducks.

Each toe has an independent leaf-like paddle.

The Little Grebe is mostly seen singly or in pairs in former mining pools, especially in the Klang Valley, Paya Indah Wetlands and Batang Berjuntai in Selangor, Malim Nawar and Kinta Valley in Perak and also in shallow artificial lakes like Timah Tasoh in Perlis. It has not been seen east of the central range of the peninsula or in Sabah and Sarawak.

This little aquatic bird is an excellent swimmer and diver. In fact, it dives some 600 to 1,000 times a day in search of food or plant materials for nest-building. It feeds mainly on aquatic insects and larvae, fish and frogs.

The relationships of mature pairs are exemplary as they share all the chores of house-keeping and parental care of the young till they fledge. Sex equality was there 55 million years ago.

I have proposed a Malay name for this bird — “Taktik” — which is an abbreviation of bukan itik (not a duck).

And because their life-cycle is so interesting, my colleague Dr Yusoff Noor, my son Shamyl and yours truly have made a 30-minute documentary of this bird entitled “The Little Diver”, which we hope will be shown on TV one day.

Two years of observation and recording compressed into 30 minutes should be exciting for nature lovers.

Back to the wildlife IN the 1990s, Dr A. Mustaffa Babjee contributed articles on fauna and flora with photo illustrations to the Environment column of the New Straits Times Group. His hiatus from writing is not because he had abandoned his pursuit and passion for nature conservation. On the contrary, he is even more active studying and recording our depleting wildlife on digital video to produce a series of documentaries on the country’s rich biodiversity. Having scaled down his corporate activities, he has more time now to devote to his serious hobby of nature watching.

“At the moment, I am recording the free living wildlife in their natural habitats or man-made ones that have become habitats by primary succession, viz former mining pools, abandoned fish ponds.

“At the rate natural habitats are being destroyed, I fear it would become more and more difficult to encounter wildlife that may appear relatively common today.

“In today’s world, the audio-visual media has the greatest impact on the masses, especially through the TV and the Internet. My documentary will be natural with minimum special effects and unnatural sounds,” says Mustaffa.

With his friend Dr Yusoff Noor, another nature lover, they roam the rural and wild places in Malaysia — wetlands, rivers, hills and islands — to watch and record the fascinating lives of wild birds, insects, plants and animals.

“If you don’t have the patience and the passion, it would be quite impossible to document the life-cycle of a bird or any wildlife. To get one minute of acceptable video footage could mean eight hours of waiting or even five to eight different visits to the location,” says Mustaffa.

“For example, we have been watching the behaviour of Grebes for two years now and we still do not know all their secrets. Often, the subjects disappear from the location due to human intrusion.” On the future of our environment, Mustaffa says: “We have no political leaders who are passionate about conservation.

We also lack public officials who care for the environment.

Most of them equate conservation to anti-development.

“They won’t and some cannot comprehend the economic values and benefits that conservation can contribute to the entire nation beyond the five years of political tenure.

“The sad thing is that by the time this county realised and recognised the economic and social values of conservation, there will be little left to conserve and a big bill for the future generation to foot for a livable environment.”

Animal control officers are trying to figure out why at least 19 domestic rabbits were living and breeding, unattended, in an aviary off White Road this week.

The rabbits were found Thursday at a rural Emerald City Way property, injured and malnourished alongside a pair of nesting geese, pigeons, doves and about 30 chickens, after a tip, according to Todd Stosuy of the county Animal Services Authority.

Two Rabbit Haven volunteers hopped to the task of rescuing 14 rabbits — a probably pregnant mother rabbit, her litter of day-old brood, four month-old bunnies and four male adults — from the enclosure Thursday.

“Each one we took out was worse than the one before, but the babies were cute as buttons,” Rabbit Haven volunteer Sherri Lynch said.

Animal control officers opened an investigation Friday into the bunnies’ care and who was responsible for them.

Animal neglect is a misdemeanor punishable by fines and a County Jail sentence.

Officers were alerted to the ailing rabbits a week ago when a woman living at the property brought in an injured bunny that was later euthanized, Stosuy said.

An animal control officer visited the site Monday and found rabbits living in burrows dug into the aviary’s dirt floor.

On Thursday, Rabbit Haven volunteers found two dead rabbits — an adult female and a four-week old — inside the 800-square-foot enclosure.

“The timing was good and bad,” Lynch said. “We got the babies out, but we didn’t get there in time to save the other adult”

Stosuy said they were lucky there weren’t more rabbits in the aviary.

Rabbits breed every 28 days and can have litters as large as 12, according to Heather Bechtel, director of Scotts Valley-based Rabbit Haven. The mother rabbit, a little chocolate-brown lop, had given birth to a litter of seven earlier this week and was probably already pregnant again, she said.

The adult males fought one another to breed with her, Lynch said. One had a serious eye injury and another had the top half-inch of his ears chewed off, she said.

“All the adults are covered in wounds, top to bottom,” Lynch said. “They battled”

In addition, the rabbits had not been properly fed, could only get water from a koi pond and were covered in bird feces from their feathered roommates roosting above.

“Our priority now is to get these guys medical care and get them into foster homes where there’s time and quiet and patience,” Lynch said. “I’ve seen hand-shy rabbits come around and become snuggle-bugs”

The bunnies were distributed to some of the 60 foster families Rabbit Haven uses to rehabilitate and socialize rescued rabbits.

The organization, started in 1987, puts rescued bunnies up for adoption and also offers classes about rabbit care in Scotts Valley and Watsonville.

“If we can help these bunnies heal, they’ll find homes,” she said.

If you have ever taken a photograph of a wild bird, the chances are about 99 percent that you have been frustrated.

Birds are difficult to photograph - extremely difficult most of the time. Just for starters, they seldom stay in one spot for more than a few seconds. And they are wary about letting humans get anywhere near them.

But birds can be photographed.

Charles Mills of Ashdown is one of Arkansas’ more accomplished bird photographers, and the hobby goes along well with his birding, his knowledge of all sorts of resident and migrant, seasonal and year-round Arkansas birds.

“The first thing you need in photographing birds is patience,” Mills said. “They don’t pose for you. Birds and wildlife in general have a tendency to bolt before you can shoot.”

Mills’ photographs have become commonplace on the annual Arkansas Wildlife calendar published by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. This takes professional-grade wildlife photographic work.

For the beginner, the nature enthusiast who wants to take bird photos, the first requirement is a camera, of course. Right away, forget the low-priced point-and-shoot cameras, whether digital or film. These won’t do.

Bird photography requires telephoto lenses, “long” lenses in the vernacular of photographers.

“You need a minimum of a 300-millimeter lens for birds. A 400 is better, but 300s are a lot more common and a lot more affordable,” Mills said. He is referring to single lens reflect cameras with interchangeable lenses.

Many amateur bird photographers begin by shooting photos around their homes - the backyard birds that may be common, and that’s an advantage. “One thing you will learn is when you are working a bird and it gets antsy, stop. Stay still. The bird may settle back down,” Mills said.

Approaching a bird on foot is difficult, as the creatures are highly aware, alert and on guard against threats. A human is a threat. Many bird photographs are made from vehicles, and camera mounts that clamp to windows are available for steadier shooting. The telephoto or long lenses are difficult to work by holding them in hand. A mount or a tripod is virtually a necessity. Sometimes, bracing the camera against a wall, tree or fence post will suffice. Keeping low is another necessity, Mills said.

Mills uses blinds of several types. Some are simply camouflaging drapes over the head and body of the photographer. Others are tent types with room inside for a stool and even for more than one person.

“When you are trying to approach a bird, a meandering route is better than walking straight toward the bird,” Mills said. “I have been told that approaching from the water is best for shorebirds and others close to water.”

Early morning and late afternoon are much better for photographing birds than the middle of the day with the sun overhead, Mills said. A low sun, either rising or setting, provides more favorable light and birds are more active these times of the day.

“I am a strong believer in what John Shaw, a prominent nature photographer and naturalist, said. You need to know what your subject is going to do. Sometimes, though, it is just being lucky that produces a good bird photograph. You can reduce the variables by planning, too,” Mills said.

“Feeders in your yard attract birds for photographing, but I like to pick a perch near the feeder and wait for a bird, not shoot the bird when it’s on the feeder.”

Mills is a career employee with the U.S. Postal Service. He is the postmaster at Ogden, a few miles south of Ashdown in Little River County.

“When I was 17, I read a National Geographic (magazine) that had an article and photos by Frederick Ken Truslow of a pair of nesting swallow-tail kites,” Mills said. “That hooked me. I went out and bought a Mamiya camera with a tele-converter, and my first pictures were of a bluebird. All I got was a tiny little image of the bird in the film frame. I had to do better than that.”

He added, “I have gotten into (photographing) dragonflies along with birds now. I hope people enjoy my pictures. I want people to understand about these things we have. Education is the key. My dad taught me to educate yourself so you can educate others.”

One thing I enjoy about working at Wild Birds Unlimited is playing bird detective - attempting to help people identify the birds in their yards. Usually, they describe what they are seeing, and I ask lots of questions.

“Was it smaller than a crow, bigger than a breadbox? Did it have wing bars? What shape was the beak? ”

Considering their descriptions, I pull out our much-worn shop copy of David Sibley’s “Birds of North America” and turn to a variety of pages. “Did it look like this? What about this?”

Then along comes spring, with its symphony of bird song. About the only thing more challenging than identifying a bird based on a description of its appearance is making an ID based on the description of a call.

Recently, a customer came in puzzled by a bird that was singing incessantly in her back yard. She recounted its serenade as sounding like “pretty-bird, pretty-bird” followed by a short trill.

I grabbed the “Identiflyer,” a small machine with 10 buttons that uses interchangeable cards, each containing 10 birds. I began playing the calls of some of the most common backyard birds.

“Teakettle, teakettle, teakettle” the tiny Carolina wren intoned.

“No,” she said. “That wasn’t it.”

“Purdy, purdy, purdy… what cheer, cheer cheer,” chirped the Northern cardinal.

She shook her head “no.”

“Drink your teeeeeea, drink your teeeeeea, ” trilled the Eastern towhee.

Again she shook her head.

Finally, I changed to the “Forest Edge” card and pressed the button for a familiar friend, our Georgia state bird. As she listened to the burry couplets, her puzzlement turned to delight.

“That’s him … can’t you hear it? ‘pretty bird, pretty bird,’ ” and then that sort of trill.”

I advised her to search the nearby treetops for Mr. Brown Thrasher. When spring arrives, he abandons his usual pursuit - searching for worms in the leaf litter - in favor of claiming a territory and wooing a mate.

Each spring, as the morning symphony increases in volume and complexity, I am grateful for the hours spent listening to the Peterson “Birding by Ear” tapes, mostly while driving around town.

Just as a connoisseur of orchestral music can pick out the distinct sounds of violin, viola, flute, oboe, trombone or snare drum, I have trained my ear to distinguish the individual voices of spring’s feathered choir.

Perhaps easiest to pick out are the birds with a call that sort of matches their name.

The lilting “chick-a-dee-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee-dee,” lets me know that the tiny Carolina chickadee with his black cap and white cheek patch is in the neighborhood. Assuming the role of the brass section, five or six blue jays blare out “jay, jay, jay.” And in the dark before dawn, one of my favorite spring visitors jars the night with his ringing “chuck-will’s widow, chuck-will’s widow.”

Some birds opt for simplicity, relying on looks rather than voice, to attract their mates. Any day now I expect to hear a sharp “weeep, weeep,” or an unmelodic “skeow,” announcing that the great crested flycatchers and the green herons are back in town.

The glowingly yellow pine warbler is one of a handful of birds that sings year-round. However, when spring arrives, it seems that his evenly pitched musical trill rings out from the top of each and every pine tree.

The American robin goes in for musical theater, contributing a sing-song “tweedle-dum, tweedle-dee,” as well as a harsher, staccato descending whinny.

The vireos are also sing-songers. They come in an assortment of colorful flavors (blue-headed, red-eyed, yellow-throated) and boast slower, slightly whiny calls that can be likened to “here I am, where are you?”

The tiny ruby crowned kinglet attempts to make up for his small size with impressive vocal dexterity. He begins his serenade with several high pitched “zeet, zeet, zeet” notes, followed by a complex tumbling torrent of song. For visual emphasis, he raises and fluffs his ruby crown.

Purple martins and American goldfinches also seem to delight in complexity, sending up a bubbling chatter of chirps, whistles and trills.

And for percussion, there is the loud drumming of the red-bellied woodpecker, interspersed with the squawks of boat-tailed grackles, and descending grunts of the clapper rails.

No offense to Click and Clack, but they can have “Car Talk.” I’ll take “Bird Talk” any day, but most especially in the spring.

A boy who suffers from a rare illness which stunts his growth has shot up two inches - with the help of hamsters.

A pioneering treatment using the rodent’s enzymes has given Oliver Moody his life back, according to his parents.

As well as the growth spurt, the 12-year- old’s organs are being cleansed of the deadly toxins they once held.

And in a rather pleasant sideeffect, the injection of a little hamster has made his hair much softer.

“It is absolutely amazing,” said his father Paul. “Who would have thought a little creature like a hamster could help to give my son his life back. It’s every parent’s dream.”

At the age of four, Oliver was diagnosed with the genetic disorder mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS) VI.

This means he is missing a vital enzyme which breaks down harmful chemicals in the body.

Without it, the toxins collect in vital organs, potentially starving them of oxygen.

Sufferers usually have severe problems with their bones, too, and most stop growing before their teens.

Until now, there was no way to treat the condition. But this method, developed by an American company, appears to relieve the symptoms.

The enzyme that Oliver lacks is extracted from Chinese hamsters, genetically modified and encased in vials. The solution is given to the patient through a drip.

At an estimated £300,000 a year, it does not come cheap, and has to be approved by the Government, rather than an NHS trust. Only seven others are using it in the UK.

But Mr Moody, 48, and his wife Dawn, 44, from Leeds, were determined to give their son a chance.

Before beginning the treatment last May, Oliver was around 3ft 10in tall, and had not grown in two years.

Mr Moody, a company director, said: “The increase in his height was the best thing for Oliver because he really wanted to be a bit bigger.

“But we also know that his organs are improving, too. Before, his liver and kidneys and the area around them were swollen and his tummy had a sort of bulbous look.

“Soon after though, we could tell he was getting better because his tummy went flat. We can see he is getting better - there are little things like his hair was really coarse but then a few weeks after he started treatment it started getting softer.

“We are over the moon, absolutely delighted.’

Oliver, who has a brother Elliot, 15, and sister Emily, eight, receives the hamster extract once a week at home.

“A nurse comes and administers the treatment. It takes four hours so he plays on his computer or watches TV.

“He’s delighted because he gets an afternoon off school. But for us it is just amazing.

“Nothing could compare to getting this treatment for our son - it’s better than winning the lottery.”

A miracle dog from Missouri is making a big difference for thousands of abandoned animals in the Triad. Quentin managed to survive a trip to the gas chamber in 2003. Now he’s convincing local leaders to shut down theirs.

“There’s this dog standing on a pile of dead dogs,” says Quentin’s adopted dad Randy Grim.

“It’s illegal in at least five states that I know of to use a gas chamber and here in North Carolina it’s the primary method of euthanasia,” Grim says.

The triad is just one stop on his cross-country mission.

“Get rid of the gas chambers and switch over to lethal injection, the more humane way.”

In order to share Quentin’s story, Grim says he had to witness a gassing first hand.

“One dog went into seizures. Another was defecating and howling. It was so horrible. Two dogs were fighting. It wasn’t this peaceful, fall asleep.”

“I never have liked the gas chamber,” says Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.

He says thousands of unwanted animals have been gassed in Rockingham County every year for more than a decade. Then the Sheriff got a visit, and a lot of information, from Grim.

“Of course he brought Quentin in here. I had Quentin in here. He had another dog named Stinky. He was in here. They were talking about how these animals have been rescued,” Page says.

Now, he says things in Rockingham County will change.

“This new contract coming up July 1, I’d like to get away from the gas chamber and when we do have to put animals down, go to the euthanasia method of lethal injection,” Page says.

Grim says Burlington officials also promised him they’d stop using gas. Across the country, he says 50 gas chambers have closed since Quentin’s story was published.

YOU’VE heard of pampered pooches - now meet Bert the spoilt bunny.

While most rabbits have to make do with a hutch in the garden, Bert revels in luxury in his own double bedroom.

He also has the run of his owner Nina Whitehead’s four-bedroomed house.

But he needs the space… for one-year-old Bert is a monster.

A continental giant rabbit, he tips the scales at a hefty 20lbs and is two-and-a-half feet long.

And he is going to get even bigger as he has another six months’ growth left.

Proud “mum” Nina, aged 25, said most people thought it was odd that Bert had his own bedroom and lived in the house.

“He is as house-trained as a dog or a cat,” she said.

“But if you train them when they’re young, any rabbit can live quite happily and safely in a house.”

Nina has converted a bedroom in the Redditch house she shares with her partner into “Bert’s den”.

“It’s a double room and we’ve put in a cage, a bed, all of Bert’s toys and his litter tray,” she said.

“Because he’s so big we had to buy a dog bed for an Alsatian.

“But he doesn’t always sleep there as he pretty much has the run of the house and sleeps wherever he likes.”

Bert also has a monster appetite and munches his way through two big bowls of food a day, as well as treats of apples and carrots and his all-time favourite food - toast.

Nina, a management support officer for a Solihull company, said: “He’s very friendly and loves human company.

“When I sit down he’ll come and lie next to me. He used to sit on my lap but now he’s too heavy.”

From the very start, the odds were against Della.

Ospreys have an 80 percent mortality rate in the first few years of life, which also makes them tough for researchers to study.

Still, state environmentalists wanted to get a better idea of where young ospreys go and how they migrate along the “osprey highway.”

Della is now the star in a partnership between Delaware state park officials and researcher Richard “Rob” Bierregaard Jr. of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

State wildlife workers are interested in learning more about the birds as their populations rebound. Like the bald eagle, osprey populations were hard hit by the use of the pesticide DDT, which caused their eggshells to thin so much they couldn’t sustain the weight of brooding adults. Once the pesticide was banned, the birds’ populations started to recover.

Based on 2003 survey data, Delaware’s osprey population numbers more than 100 active, nesting pairs, double what it was in the early 1980s. A new survey is planned for this year, said Holly Niederriter, the state’s nongame and endangered species coordinator.

Della is the lone survivor of three juvenile ospreys from Delaware that were outfitted with global positioning transmitters late last summer.

Bierregaard tracks her movements along with a group of other ospreys that were fitted with transmitters in Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts.

The work is giving researchers and wildlife managers a better picture of how ospreys spend the first two years of their lives.

“We wanted to do something a little special,” said Raymond E. Bivens, chief of environmental education and interpretation for Delaware state parks.

Three birds chosen

The project had its start last summer, when Bierregaard and park officials selected three juvenile ospreys and equipped them with solar-powered GPS transmitters.

Adult birds leave their nests and fly south before their newly fledged young do, Bierregaard said. The young fly south a few weeks later, making the trip solo.

Bierregaard said adults have a migration route and destination in mind before they leave — a pattern formed during that first juvenile migration.

The migration of young birds seems to be triggered by an urge to migrate that lasts only about a month.

Some of the birds that Bierregaard tracked from Martha’s Vineyard, for instance, ended their first migration in Florida.

But Delaware birds, like Della, often fly all the way to South America.

“It’s sort of osprey heaven,” because Della has settled in at the confluence of two rivers in Brazil and there are plenty of fish to eat, Bierregaard said. “It’s a perfect habitat.”

“Very few young birds had been tagged when I started,” he said, because researchers are reluctant to study a species with such a high mortality rate. Bierregaard said he looks for adult ospreys that are excellent parents when he goes looking for young birds to study.

That seems to improve the odds.

“I’ve had pretty good luck with the young birds,” he said.

Migration casualties

Delaware’s other two young ospreys never made it to Brazil.

Lew, the first to leave Delaware, made it as far south as Savannah, Ga. He spent the winter there and on March 3, his transmitter stopped detecting signs of movement, Bivens said.

Bierregaard drove to Savannah and found the dead bird and the transmitter.

“The bird didn’t make it, but I got the transmitter back,” he said. That was good news because the transmitters cost $3,500 each, he said.

Delaware’s third bird, Erica, was lost east of the Bahamas. Researcher believe she may have been swept far offshore by strong winds.

Della’s journey has amazed Delaware park officials and the Friends of Cape Henlopen State Park, who are supporting the research.

The bird left Delaware and made it to the tip of Florida in four days — often flying over open water. She flew south to Cuba and then hopscotched over to Hispaniola. The longest leg of her trip was from Hispaniola to South America. Her migration was the longest recorded.

Bierregaard has been tracking young ospreys for seven years, and began the transmitter program in 2004. He said females tend to migrate farther south than males.

The birds will stay for two years and then, as they reach sexual maturity, will return to the area where they were born. Males, he said, tend to be more loyal to the place where they were born. Female birds often return to the region, but a Delaware bird may end up nesting in New Jersey, he said.

“How do they know when they’re done migrating?’ Bierregaard asks. Well, he said, their migration urge lasts just about a month. They don’t navigate because they don’t know landmarks, he said.

“Young birds don’t have a destination.”

But an adult bird, who has made the trip before, will use landmarks to navigate the journey from breeding grounds to wintering grounds each year, he said.

Ospreys typically spend about five months in Delaware — arriving in late March or April, breeding, hatching and raising their young and then migrating south in September.

The tracking project, along with an osprey nesting camera that was unveiled over the weekend at Cape Henlopen State Park, have great educational components, Bivens said.

“This is a geography lesson,” Bivens said.

San Diego County bird lovers warmly welcomed the long-absent California condor yesterday, saying the Boeing 747 of birds is something every enthusiast wants to see.

They were reacting to the announcement that a female condor took a spin around San Diego County’s mountains this week after flying up from Mexico. As of Wednesday, the 3-year-old condor was winging around Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, according to satellite tracking by the San Diego Zoo.

The critically endangered birds are being reintroduced into the wild in Mexico and Central California. Before this, the last documented sighting of a condor over San Diego County was in 1910, zoo officials have said.

“It’s just a thrill, the thought of having condors returning to San Diego County, and I think most birders feel the same way,” said Sue Smith, a past president of San Diego Field Ornithology.

Bird lover Philip Pryde remembers feeling a sense of urgency about condors in the late 1980s.

That’s when wildlife officials announced plans to remove the nearly extinct condor from the wild and place it in breeding programs such as the one at the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park, near Escondido.

Pryde hopped into his car and headed north to Los Padres National Forest, where condors were known to fly.

“I was determined I was going to camp there until I saw them,” said Pryde, a past president of the San Diego Audubon Society. “Fortunately, I saw one within 12 hours.”

There’s just something about the California condor, bird lovers say: not a pretty face, but an awesome, 9-foot wingspan that makes it North America’s largest bird.

“Birders want to see every species they possibly can, but the condor obviously has a mystique beyond practically anything else,” said Philip Unitt, the San Diego Natural History Museum’s curator of birds and mammals. “It is its rarity, compounded with its size and struggle with survival.”

Unitt also made the pilgrimage to Los Padres in the late 1980s, but he had no luck with a sighting.

The California condor population dipped to just above 20, its lowest point, in the mid-1980s. In 1992, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-led effort began reintroducing the birds into the wild in Santa Barbara County.

Since 2002, zoologists have released 11 condors in Baja California’s Sierra San Pedro de Martir National Park, about 125 miles south of the border.

Condor enthusiasts hope the Mexico and Central California groups will eventually merge, making San Diego County’s mountains a part of their regular flight path.

Pryde said that if condors started to breed here, “that would be nirvana.”