Fun, games, food at the best Kid’s Crane Fest ever

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Above: Kids were spellbound by the working landscape model set up in a trailer by folks from the Rio Grande Watershed Conservation and Education Initiative. The model mimicked the watershed, complete with miniature plants and animals, water and shifting land.


MONTE VISTA—The Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge was a flurry of activity this weekend: kids hunting for eggs, folding origami Sandhill Cranes, imprinting elk and crane tracks into plaster casts and gobbling up hot dogs.
The fun and food were part of the 14th Annual Kid’s Crane Festival, which is held at the refuge every year as a way of teaching kids about local wildlife and celebrating the fall migration of Sandhill Cranes through the San Luis Valley as they travel southward to their wintering grounds in Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico.
Thanks to superb weather, great media coverage, a cadre of volunteers and a bounty of wildlife lovers from all corners of the Valley and beyond, the festival was a booming success. Upwards of 200 people attended. “This might have been best Kid’s Crane Fest ever,” said Jenny Nehring, vice president of the nonprofit group Friends of the San Luis Valley National Wildlife Refuges (SLVNWR), which organizes the event. Some families came from as far away as Boulder, Montrose and Colorado Springs just for the event.  
The event kicked off with complimentary hot dogs for everyone. Then it was game on. Kids flew from booth to booth, testing and trying each game, lingering in favorite spots and then zooming off to another interesting activity. In the past, festivals would start out strong before tapering off after about an hour or so, Nehring said. “This year, all of our activities were busy all afternoon. I think we had a great mix of activities for a good range of ages.”
Activities included a puppet show, archery, a scavenger hunt, migration games, wildlife trivia, and animal crafts. New activities this year were the casting of wildlife tracks in plaster that the kids could take home with them and a game where kids matched eggs with the birds who laid them. Nehring also brought owl pellets that had been gathered from the refuge and Frisco Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Del Norte. Once the children and parents were assured the pellets had been sterilized, they dug into them with tweezers to break them apart and find inside the bones of whatever animal the owl had eaten. “Owl pellets are coughed up by owls, and they contain things like fur, sinew and bones,” Nehring said.
Volunteers from the Friends of the SLVNWR pull off the Kid’s Crane Festival every year with the help of a group of dedicated volunteers as well as staff from an array of organizations and government agencies, including the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, National Park Services, Southwest Region Education and Volunteer Program, Frisco Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Center and the Rio Grande Watershed Conservation and Education Initiative. Origami expert Will Krebbs drove from Alamosa to teach kids how to make origami animals---including, of course, Sandhill Cranes. And folks from the Friends of the San Luis Valley National Wildlife Refuges were there selling t-shirts and providing volunteers to assist with activities and provide wildlife and nature expertise at several booths.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife volunteers David and Haydee Ullrich drove from their home in Colorado Springs to participate in the event. The couple had just finished up volunteering at the Elk Fest in Estes Park. “We love volunteering at events like this,” said Haydee, “It’s such a joy to see the excitement in kid’s eyes about nature and animals, and to pass on our love for Colorado wildlife.” The couple provided expertise at the wildlife trivia booth, where kids spun a wheel with local wildlife species listed on it. When the wheel stopped on a certain animal, Haydee picked out a trivia card with a question about the animal’s natural traits. For example, how many eggs does a Sandhill Crane typically lay, how far can cranes fly in a single day and how often does a mule deer buck shed his antlers. (answers: two, 500 miles, annually).
For Nehring, seeing each child’s sense of discovery and watching them learn is inspiring. “But one of my favorite things is that some parents learn as much as or possibly more than their kids,” she said, “and they express fascination about something they just learned.”
Due to the great interest and success of the booths and games at the Kid’s Crane Fest, the crane festival committee said it will be adding some of the more popular activities to the Monte Vista Crane festival, slated for March 8 - 10, 2019.


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