SANDHILL CRANES, A “HIKE”, SPRING SPRINGING, AND EASTER COMING

I feel the need to get this post posted because we are going away for a while — to California and some of Oregon, and I will have more to post then

We did get to attend the Sandhill Crane festival and got a slight sighting of the cranes.

Arrived in Othello WA for the festival.

Our first sighting of the cranes!

There were lots of things going on at the festival: lectures, boat ride, bus trip, museum tours, and a bike to the cranes ride. Our friends chose many of those activities, Susan and I were mostly interested in the bike ride and did not attend any of those listed activities.

We were very fortunate that the weather cleared quite well for our ride, but first we had to address Shelly’s tire that had gone flat overnight. Susan did her magic, with my assistance, of pulling the tube from the tire and patching it with the tire remaining attached to the wheel, thus eliminating the complex issue of removing (and replacing) the wheel on a rear drive e-bike.

Here we are in their hotel room, doing the fix.

Shelly was most grateful for the fix, and we were ready for the ride the following morning.

It was a delightful ride through the country side with not many hills, and the ones there, were brief. I (we) expected to see the cranes in nearby fields like we see the trumpeter swans and snow geese near us in Skagit County. But no, the cranes are shy and spooked easily by the slightest sound, so we had to search for these birds. And when they were spotted we could barely see them. Fortunately Susan had brought our binoculars and we at least got a glimpse.

The best view was this one — back at headquarters 😉.

But we did spot an immature eagle in the trees.

Susan and I feel we can now take the Sandhill Crane festival off our To Do list. A one time thing for us that we are glad to have done, but no need to do it again.

March has had some fairly icky weather but we worked around it the best we could. Our friend Kathy came over to hike with us on our Library Trail. For such a close by trail — less than a block from our house, it is truly a gem of a hike. Almost like being in the wilderness with aged trees, soft trail, lots of low growth.

My bicycle rides had to be squeezed into dry times that were scattered about and somewhat infrequent. I spotted a hint of spring on one of the early rides I did. That was encouraging.

A couple more solo rides would have to do it for me as we near the end of March and prepare for our trip to California. I will blog about that trip as it happens.

Easter is near, and I know that because of the following photos.

Easter Egg Tree…