40th Monte Vista Crane Festival this weekend in San Luis Valley

MONTE VISTA, Colo. (KRDO) -- The 40th Monte Vista Crane Festival is scheduled for this weekend, March 10 - 12.

Each year, more than 20,000 sandhill cranes stop in southern Colorado as part of their annual spring migration. The San Luis Valley is the perfect location for these large birds to stop as they transition from their winter range to their breeding range further north.

“This is one of the great wildlife migrations in the country that people can actually get out and see,” said CPW Education and Volunteer Coordinator Catherine Brons. “The Monte Vista Crane Festival is an exciting event that CPW and our wonderful volunteers take pride in being a part of, and we love this chance to reunite with some volunteers who have assisted with this for decades.”

Tickets and information for the event can be found at https://mvcranefest.org/.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) staff and volunteers will be on hand at outdoor scope sites to help answer questions about the cranes.

According to CPW, Cranes are migratory birds, and the Rocky Mountain population of greater sandhill cranes is estimated at roughly 20,000. Much of the population spends its winter in nesting grounds south in New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico and will migrate north in the spring to summer breeding grounds in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.

The birds that migrate through Colorado are the largest of the North American sandhill crane subspecies standing 4-feet tall with a wing-span of up to 7 feet and weighing in at 11 pounds, CPW said.

The Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge will be open one hour before sunrise and one hour after sunrise for crane viewing. Cranes may also be viewed at the Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge southeast of Alamosa as well as at CPW’s Rio Grande, Higel, and Russell Lakes State Wildlife Areas.

Cranes are most active at dusk and dawn when they move from nighttime roosting areas to fields where they feed. People attending the crane festival’s viewing sites may also see eagles, owls, turkeys, and a variety of other raptors and waterfowl, according to CPW.

To find more wildlife viewing events across Colorado, visit: https://cpw.state.co.us/thingstodo/Pages/Viewing.aspx#EventsFestivals.