I could not find any sandhill cranes on Lower Crab Creek Road last week, between Royal City and Corfu Road, and I don't remember crossing a bridge on that stretch? They were supposed to be roosting near a bridge over Crab Creek. Can anyone tell me where the bridge is located? I hope to attend next year's festival.
Here is a report of my trip:
Right before arriving in Royal City on Friday morning, we were delighted to spot a flock of cranes in the sky to the south of Highway 26 (about 10:15 a.m). We drove south to Lower Crab Creek Road at about 11 a.m., but we didn't spot any birds except for some gorgeous meadowlarks singing their hearts out, and then we turned north on to Corfu Road and met a man who advised us to check out Scooteney, saying he's always seen the cranes there, on all his visits. He gave us explicit directions, so we headed in to Othello.

We went to City Hall for maps and info and took a photo in front of the crane sculptures, and then we went to the DWR. They gave us more good info and suggested we head over to the Old Hotel Museum. It was fun seeing all the crane paintings and displays there. Then we walked to the library, and they had a nice display of books on sandhill cranes we looked through.

Then we headed out to Scooteney. We walked up a big hill on to a cliff overlooking a giant sandbar. Sure enough, cranes were everywhere! It was fun seeing and hearing so many of them! 3 bewildered Canada Geese stood on a cliff watching the thousands of cranes, as if stupefied by them. A fat marmot scampered up the cliff behind them. It was so fun seeing the cranes take off in small groups, heading to feed. A DWR man we met later that night at Estella Leopold's interesting talk told us these particular cranes tend to feed on Coyan Road. We stayed there a good part of the afternoon, fascinated, until all but about 50 cranes had departed. A few of them played in the water. We saw 2 sandpiperish looking birds with the cranes, and several Canada Geese shared the outskirts of the crane space.

That evening, before finding out where the Scooteney cranes had gone to feed, we tried to find them, but we had no luck. It had appeared that they had flown far, far away from the sandbar. We had seen faraway swirls of them in the air.

At Estella's talk, a man said we should not plan to follow the tour schoolbuses the next morning because they don't appreciate it. Knowing we didn't have time to stick around for a full tour, he said we might be able to see cranes at Columbia National Wildlife Refuge (Marsh I), and he suggested two spots where he frequently sees them, which he marked on the map for us. We drove to both around 8 a.m. the next morning, with no success at spotting cranes. We did have a delightful encounter with a gorgeous coyote who was only about 200 feet away!

Then we decided to check out Coyan Road, to see whether cranes might still be feeding there. Sure enough, we came across a field with some. It was so fun seeing them parachute down on their skinny little legs. They were sharing a cornfield with some black angus, very near Scooteney Reservoir. We were about 200 feet away from them. By that time it was nearly noon. We checked out the sandbar on Scooteney but not a single crane was there yet. We wondered whether maybe they were hanging out in the cornfields extra late because of the overcast, rainy weather? Do you know whether this was the case? We thought they'd be on the sandbar by 10 or so, so we felt very lucky to have been able to catch them still feeding in the cornfields at noon.

We are wondering how the folks on the tours fared? Some people said the cranes in the Othello area mostly hung out south of Royal City this year, unlike in past years. How many cranes did they see feeding? It was a very fun festival.

I'll be returning to Washington State May 26 - June 4. Any bird festivals coming up in the Wapato area then? Or birding hotspots thereabout I should know about? Thanks for your help.

Clare Scifi
Ogden, Utah
ReligionWriter at Yahoo.Com



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