Going to see the birds

OTHELLO — People poured into Othello High School on Saturday to take part in the 12th annual Othello Sandhill Crane Festival.

The event took place Friday through Sunday and drew people from across the state to look at birds, wind towers, talk with friends and listen to lectures.

Rhiannon Reno, from Othello, waited in line to get her face painted. She said her favorite part of the festival was the mask making. Children lined up in a room at the end of the hallway to make bird masks.

“First you get petroleum jelly put on your face,” Reno said. “Then you have to pick a bird. They’ve got mallards, cranes and finches. Then they put a cast on your face … It’s still drying then you get to paint it.”

Nikki Contreras, from Othello, agreed the mask masking was her favorite part as well. She was also waiting for her finch mask to dry. She planned on painting it purple and green with gold glitter.

“I like gold and I like purple and green,” she said.

Contreras was excited about her next stop, a tour to go look at the cranes. Buses pulled up outside to allow people to attend a crane spotting tour.

Dick Erickson, a member of the festival’s committee, just came back from leading a tour to the Wild Horse Wind Farm near Vantage, Wash. On the way, the eight people on the tour stopped and looked at cranes and long-billed curlew.

“We saw a lot of them,” he said.

The group met with an employee from the wind farm, who showed them how the machines work and showed them a five-acre solar panel array. Along the way, they saw elk gathered around the bases and could see down into the Quincy Valley and the Royal Slope, Erickson said.

“I’m not a birder or a biologist. I’m an engineer, so I liked the wind turbines,” he said. “I think the festival turned out fine this year.”

The main attraction for Paula Reno and Bertha Contreras was the Washington State University Raptor Club, who brought hawks, falcons, owls and an eagle to display. They split there time between doing demonstrations and displaying the birds in a booth in the main vendors room.

The group takes care of raptors that can’t survive in the wild. At the booth, Angela Burns holds a peregrine falcon named Piper.

The gray and black bird was a falconer’s animal, which was born with a defect in its eye. The gray spot looks like a cataract. Burns said they didn’t think she could see out of the eye and she was already imprinted onto humans.

“We love coming here,” she said.

John Moody, one of the committee members, said the club draws a crowd every year. He’s been on the committee for 10 years.

“This has turned out to be a good year,” he said. “There’s some new faces and some people who’ve come back.”

He said the event drew about 35 vendors selling everything from art, to face painting, to people presenting on the history of the Columbia Basin Project.

“It’s a small enough event that people just come by and visit,” he said.