Sandhill Crane Festival Field Trip

Submitted by Theresa Shaffer, Coeur d’Alene Audubon Event Coordinator and Member

In March, nine Coeur d Alene Audubon members travelled to attend the 27th annual Othello Sandhill Crane Festival. The area is part of the Pacific Flyway where around 35,000 lesser Sandhill Cranes come during their spring and fall migrations. Though it was cold, windy, and rainy, we were all able to see lots of Sandhill Cranes, waterfowl and even a porcupine sleeping on a tree limb. A “fly-in” bus tour on the first evening took us directly to Scootney Reservoir to watch Sandhill Cranes fly in to their night roosting area. We were treated to a colorful sunset and thousands of noisy Sandhill Cranes coming in to land on the muddy sandbars. 

On the second day, some of us took the Crane viewing bus tour where we drove through farmland to view Cranes eating waste grain from last year’s harvest. We ended up at Rowley Farms where hundreds of Sandhill Cranes were feasting in one of the cornfields. The rest of the day was spent mostly listening to lectures and learning about Sandhill Cranes, geology, flora and fauna, migratory birds and frogs. Some of us took advantage of the food trucks for lunch and went to the local museum at the Old Hotel for a wine tasting. On the last day, a group of us took the Pot Holes Reservoir boat tour. "Pothole" refers to large depressions in the earth in that area, created during the Pleistocene flooding in prehistoric times. The tour was led by Nathan, a local tour guide who took us out to the bays on the reservoir where we observed waterfowl, grebes, a blue heron, ring-necked gulls, eagles, a great horned owl sitting in a nest and flying clouds of snow geese. We found this trip to be exciting and well-worth braving the cold temperatures.