Monday, January 20, 2014

Sandhill Crane Festival 2014

This weekend we headed down to the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge for the Sandhill Crane Festival.  It was a wonderful experience!   First of all, the kids were SO excited that they got to ride an actual school bus!  Christy kept calling it the "magic school bus".   We saw lots of Sandhill Cranes that migrate here every year.   We also got to see a Bald Eagle and a Golden Eagle flying around.   

Later we went back to the community center and the kids did some fun crafts and then we got to watch a raptor show.   It was so neat to see birds up close that we wouldn't get to otherwise.   







Golden Eagle
We got to watch it swoop down and grab something out of the water!












Making bird feeders.


Sandhill Crane masks







Harris Hawk


Red Tail Hawk



American Kestrel (My personal favorite).   
We've been watching a kestrel around our house for a few weeks so it was neat to see one up close.



Great Horned Owl



Screech Owl

So cute!!!




Bald Eagle

3 comments:

sarah in the woods said...

Oh my goodness, that looks like such a wonderful experience! I wish I had known about it. I'm putting it on the calendar for next year! Do you know about the Wilderness Wildlife Week in Pigeon Forge? It starts this Saturday.

TheBowlingFamily said...

I didn't know about that Sarah! I wish we weren't moving this weekend or we'd definitely go. I'll let you know if I hear of anything else like the Sandhill Festival :)

sarah in the woods said...

Thanks, Stephanie. Hope your move goes well.