The Discovery For the people who work with California Condors in the cliffs and canyons of the southwest U.S., March was devastating. In a few short weeks, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) swept through the flock in Arizona, killing as many as 21 birds. Staff from The Peregrine Fund, a raptor-focused conservation group that leads condor restoration in the region, spent their days collecting sick and dying birds from the desert landscape and closely tracking each individual in the flock for signs of illness. Most concerning was if a condor settled in one spot and stopped moving—as when condor 316 made her way into a cliffside cave in mid-March and didn’t budge. “It was very nerve-wracking,” says Shawn Farry, the on-site condor program manager. Farry worried that 316 had contracted the virus that was killing her flock-mates, but it was also the time of year when a condor might hunker down for another reason: to lay an egg. And indeed, 316 was holed up with a...