OTHELLO – Nearly 1,500 visitors from across the United States and as far away as Ireland gathered in Othello this weekend for the 28th annual Othello Sandhill Crane Festival. The weekend-long event, held at The Othello Church of the Nazarene and McFarland Middle School, celebrates the annual migration of the famed Sandhill Crane. It also educates attendees about the geologic and animal diversity of the Columbia Basin region.
The festival offers much more than bird-watching opportunities, though bus tours of local crane hotspots are very popular. Professionals offered lectures ranging from discussions about the Pacific flyway, the route our local cranes follow when migrating, to the diverse flora and fauna of the Columbia Basin. Photography workshops, bicycle tours, and boat tours were also available.
Event Co-Organizer, Jenn Stevenson, said this year’s festival was the biggest ever. “total tickets presold was almost 1,500,” she said. “Most of those are tourists. Every year our goal is a little bigger.”
Though the event celebrates the famed Sandhill Crane migration, Stevenson said they can never guarantee that attendees will see cranes. “These are wild animals. We don’t chain them up,” she said. Othello sits on the Pacific Flyway, which Stevenson described as “a highway in the sky for migration.” The Flyway extends from Argentina to Alaska and is a major route for Migrating birds in the Western Hemisphere. The cranes that visit Othello for several weeks annually spend their winter in Califonia’s Central Valley. They stop in Othello for rest and food on their way to Alaska. “They remember Othello has food,” Stevenson said. “They’re eating corn, mice, frogs, they’re opportunistic, they’ll eat anything,” she said. The birds spend the night in the water, forming flotillas for safety.
Proceeds from the festival are fund the following year’s event. Stevenson estimated that it costs between $40,000 and $70,000 each year.
Othello School District provided buses and drivers for bird tours. The associated cost is paid by the festival, not the school district.
