The cranes were flying today, mostly over the Royal Slope west of Othello.
Between 9 and noon there were at least 3000 in various sized flocks circling
to gain altitude, constantly calling, and finally climbing over Saddle
Mountain on their way south. A group gathered south of SR 26 and reached
about 500 before they were spooked and headed out, but Bob Flores indicated
that others were on the ground this afternoon. Some corn has already been
harvested, so we can expect to have some around for a few weeks. Even
though we don't have the masses of the spring migration spending lots of
time here in the fall, satellite telemetry indicates that the Othello and
Potholes area still holds cranes longer than any other migration stop
between Alaska (breeding grounds) and California (wintering areas). I did
see one small flock of mixed sizes of cranes, with at least a dozen that had
to be Greater Sandhills. I'd still like to know where they are coming from.

Randy Hill
Othello

> We saw a couple hundred cranes on the ground feeding in a corn field
> along Dodson Road near the intersection with Highway 26 later in the
> afternoon. They may not be rare birds, but it is hard to beat hearing the
> distinctive sound of hundreds of Sandhill Cranes as they migrate en-masse!

> Happy birding!
>
> --
> Rob McNair-Huff ---------- Tacoma, WA
> Author of Birding Washington (Falcon Publishing, 2004)
> and Insider's Guide to the Olympic Peninsula (Globe Pequot, 2001)
> White Rabbit Publishing ---- http://www.whiterabbits.com
> Mac Net Journal ---------- http://www.macnetjournal.com
> The Equinox Project ------ http://www.whiterabbits.com/weblog.html
>
>
>