Sandhill cranes draw the crowds east to Othello

Published 9:00 pm Friday, March 19, 2004

Perhaps the Othello Sandhill Crane Festival’s slogan should be, "The early bird gets a tour!"

Although some of the tours are already full for the March 26-28 festival, there’s still plenty to do around this central Washington town with the spectacular sandhill cranes.

The town of 2,000 will welcome about 1,500 visitors for the seventh annual festival, greeting them with three days of outings and lectures, including the keynote talk by wildlife artist Robert Bateman.

By the end of March, the sandhill crane peak should be around 10,000, according to Randy Hill, Columbia Basin National Wildlife Refuge biologist.

That’s about half of all the sandhill cranes in the Pacific flyway, Hill said.

Alaska wildlife officials, who have radio-equipped some of the cranes to monitor their movements, tell Hill that the Columbia Basin has become the most important migratory stopover area for these birds flying from wintering grounds in California to breeding and summering sites in Alaska.

The cranes aren’t the most numerous birds in the Columbia Basin, but they may be the most spectacular. At up to 4 feet tall, with up to a 7.5-foot wingspan, these silvery gray birds with red crown patches are among the avian charismatics.

Cranes are the main event of the festival, but field trips include other species.

Tours take birders through shrub-steppe areas at the base of Saddle Mountain to Crab Creek wetlands, on the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge and the Potholes Reservoir, to sandhill cranes’ feeding areas, and out looking for sage grouse.

Explore the channeled scablands of the Missoula flood with a geologist, take in a "Cows, Crops and Cranes" lecture and tour, or a burrowing owls lecture and short field trip.

Other talk topics include brants, butterflies, bats, attracting wildlife, beneficial insects, "crane-ology," history, Coulee Corridor Birding Trail, Lewis and Clark Expedition, shorebirds, raptors, merlins and digiscoping (using a digital camera with a spotting scope as a telephoto lens).

Or bring a bike and look for cranes on a guided, 20-25-mile bike tour on flat and rolling terrain.

For more information: www.othellosandhillcranefestival.org, or call 509-488-2802, ext. 100.

Speaking of birds, the popular spring cruises to Protection Island are under way, sponsored by the Port Townsend Marine Science Center.

The three-hour trips are scheduled from 1-4 p.m. on March 27 and April 3, 10, 17 and 24 from the Point Hudson Marina. Take the 65-foot Glacier Spirit and check out the breeding, nesting and flyway populations of numerous bird species.

Protection Island is a national wildlife refuge located at the mouth of Discovery Bay near Port Townsend.

Naturalists from the center, familiar with the island, its local bird population and marine mammals, are on-board interpreters. More than 80 bird species and eight mammal species, including gray whales and elephant seals, have been spotted over the years.

Tickets are $45 per person ($40 for members of the center, Burke Museum, Audubon or the Washington Ornithological Society).

For reservations, call 800-566-3932.

Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.