Sandhill Crane Festival marks another successful event

The weather was right albeit it a bit windy, the bird watchers flocked in from as far away as the Yukon and the Golden State, and the annual Othello Sandhill Crane Festival lived up to its billing once again.

“We were real pleased with the festival and with our attendance. We don’t have the numbers in yet, but we had a good showing of people,” said Othello Sandhill Crane Festival co-chair Chris Braunwart. “All of the tours saw a lot of birds and the visitors we’re pleased with the speakers conducting the lectures at the high school. They gave us a lot of positive input — and that feeds us — keeps us going especially when Sunday rolls around.”

This year marked the 21st year of the popular event, which began as an educational program in 1987.

“It was the brain child of Randy Hill and Bob Flores who worked for the Fish and Wildlife Refuge in Othello,” co-chair Kurt Braunwart said. “The first year it drew approximately 400 people. It has now drawn thousands and blossomed to the point of when we travel people ask us where we are from and when we tell them and they say, ‘Oh, that’s where they have the crane festival.’”

Kurt recalls the cranes first occupying the Basin skies when he was growing up in Moses Lake in the early 50s.

“My dad was a biologist and every year he’d get so exited when they arrived. But they were so high in the sky you couldn’t see them very well,” he said. “The irrigation water wasn’t here yet so they didn’t land because there was nothing for them to eat. But that all changed with the irrigation water and now they feed on the residue from the corn, wheat and alfalfa fields.”

Theory was Kurt said, the birds were forced down by bad weather and by happenstance found the needed nutrition, and thus Othello became a pit stop for the cranes in route from the Central Valley Region of California to their breeding grounds in Alaska.

“Othello turned out to be a place for them to feed and rest for a few weeks before heading up north,” he said. “The birds start showing up in late February and stay through March. In October they migrate back through here with their colts (offspring) on their way back to California.”

While they are in Othello, the majority of the cranes viewed on the tours are found feasting during the morning hours on private lands, so it’s important Kurt said for bird goers to respect the farmer’s property. During the late afternoon and evenings, the cranes are roosting at the Scootney Reservoir. “They like to roost in shallow water on sandbars away from people, so the Bureau of Reclamation out of Ephrata lowers the water on the reservoir while they are here.”

Heidi Newsome, a Wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, works as a guide for the National Wildlife Refuge System during festival weekend.

“I’ve been involved with the crane festival for 14 years now and we always see cranes,” she said. “Othello is a stopover location for them to refuel. They use a lot of energy when they are flying to Alaska, so while they are here they are filling up and trying to get as much nutrition as possible and gain weight so when they arrive they will be in the best condition possible to get through the nesting and egg laying process.”

Most females, Newsome said, will typically have two colts, which requires the utmost of care to get them to the point where they can fend for themselves.

“There is a lot of parental investment in raising a chick,” she said. “It takes about 32 days for the eggs to hatch, so the males and females take turns incubating the nests. The colts are able to walk right away, but it takes another 45 to 50 days before they can fly, so they are really vulnerable during that stage of development.”

The birds are about four months old when the cranes begin to migrate back to the Central Valley Region of California. Kurt said roughly 80 percent of them make it from one migration to the next. Those that survive go on to make several trips to the frozen tundra and back.

“The Cranes cane live up to 20 years, so they only need to produce one or two young over several nesting seasons to replace themselves,” Newsome said. “ As far as we know this is a stable population that moves through here, which means their reproduction is keeping up with their mortality rate.”

Kurt said the Othello Conservation District was the original sponsor and organizer of the Sandhill Crane Festival, but event expanded to the point it became overwhelming for the group, so the Grant County Conservation District stepped in and now assumes those responsibilities.

As one can imagine, it takes a lot of prep work to put on the festival each year.

“We’re already planning for next year. Our first meeting is a follow-up to the festival usually in late April or early May. We use it to assess how we did and what we can do better,” Chris said. “We are always looking to add new things each year that will complement the repeats that have been successful. We meet again in August and then really get to work in mid-October and continue working through mid-March.”

The Sandhill Crane Festival, she said, is truly a community event that takes up to 400 volunteers to pull off. Local businesses also sponsor and set up displays. Breakfast is put on by the Othello Rotary — the Othello Senior Center organizes lunch.

“We have wonderful volunteers and a lot of community support and without that, the festival would not continue.”

This was the first year the festival conducted online registration along with phone in. Next year, Kurt said, it will be 100 percent online, but people can still call in with questions.