Refuge Etiquette and Viewing Etiquette

Although Othello is well-known for the spring Sandhill Crane Festival, birders also regularly travel to our area during the fall migration season. Our area is part of the Pacific Flyway, an “interstate” for avian migration. Thirty-two different types of mammals and over 200 species of birds have been observed at the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge. At the height of spring and fall migration, biologists estimate the refuge is home to up to 100,000 birds. The diversity of wil

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SPECIES SPECIFICS Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) are large, long-legged and long-necked birds of the order Gruiformes, and family Gruidae. There are 15 species of cranes in the world, but only two are found in North America—the Sandhill crane and the whooping crane. The whooping crane is essentially all white and is slightly larger than the Sandhill crane. There are six subspecies of Sandhill cranes—greater, lesser, Florida, Cuban, Mississippi and Canadian. However, there