Sandhill Crane Festival still draws birdwatchers
Birdwatchers Amy Jonak (right) and Mary Herald (center) get advice on prime birdwatching spots from Old Hotel Art Gallery manager Jenn Stevenson (right) Thursday, during the Othello Sandhill Crane Festival.
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald
Birdwatchers Amy Jonak (right) and Mary Herald (center) get advice on prime birdwatching spots from Old Hotel Art Gallery manager Jenn Stevenson (right) Thursday, during the Othello Sandhill Crane Festival.
Sandhill cranes search for food in a cornfield near Othello Thursday. The cranes are the focus of the annual Othello Sandhill Crane Festival, held last weekend in Othello.
Sandhill cranes search for food in a cornfield near Othello Thursday. The cranes are the focus of the annual Othello Sandhill Crane Festival, held last weekend in Othello.
OTHELLO — Othello Sandhill Crane Festival events were online this year, but that didn’t stop birdwatchers from trekking to see birds.
Jenn Stevenson, one of the festival board members and manager of the Old Hotel Art Gallery, said more than 200 people came into the hotel to pick up maps showing prime birdwatching spots.
Among them were Amy Jonak and Mary Herald, who traveled from San Francisco. They stopped by the hotel Thursday afternoon to get some tips on the best places to observe not only cranes, but other birds congregating around Othello each spring.
They joined Herald’s sister, who is a festival veteran.
“We’ve talked about this for years and years,” Jonak said, but just never quite made the trip.
They heard the festival was on, Jonak said, just with a smaller crowd anticipated, and they wanted to get out after a year of restrictions.
The festival normally features dozens of lectures and guided tours, but those were scrapped for 2021 in light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Stevenson said about 200 people signed up for the four lectures presented online.
