I returned today from the Sandhill Crane Festival in Othello and wanted
to mention a couple of notes about the amazing way that timing works in
bird watching. Just as Dennis Paulson did the day before me, I drove with
my wife Natalie on the road from Corfu all the way down to Beverly,
including the section just past E Rd. on Lower Crab Creek Road - the same
spot where Dennis Paulson saw at least 710 Sandhill Cranes, and on this
day there were no Sandhill Cranes to be seen. We did however see the pair
of Loggerhead Shrikes, as well as a Golden Eagle, dozens of Western
Meadowlark and a couple of smallish red butterflies that escaped my view
before I could track them down.

Natalie and I didn't see too many Sandhill Cranes on Saturday near
Othello either, but we did watch an amazing congregation of cranes,
wigeon, Canada Geese and other waterfowl at sunset as they swirled in a
giant tornado of birds over a cornfield just off Hwy. 26 at A St.

--
Rob McNair-Huff <mailto:rob at whiterabbits.com>
White Rabbit Publishing <http://www.whiterabbits.com>
Publisher of Mac Net Journal <http://www.whiterabbits.com/MacNetJournal>
The Equinox Project <http://www.whiterabbits.com/weblog.html>
Co-author of Insiders Guide to the Olympic Peninsula