More than 14,000 visitors ‘flocked’ to Decatur’s Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge last month, and you’re invited to their temporary home during the 2025 Festival of The Cranes, January 10-12, 2025.
The annual event includes educational programs, speakers, workshops and entertainment at Decatur’s Princess Theatre and Alabama Center for the Arts. But the stars of the show are the 14,000-plus sandhill and a few whooping cranes that arrive at Wheeler each year and escape the frigid temperatures of the northern states they live in during the spring and summer.
Sandhill cranes are North America’s most populous crane. Their preferred habitat includes marshes and bogs, making them ideally suited for the 35,000-acre Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Sandhill cranes engage in a mating dance that involves stretching their wings. The cranes partner up and remain monogamous for life. And they can get feisty when it comes to defending their breeding area, where intruders are greeted rudely.
The annual Festival of the Cranes attracts bird enthusiasts, from experts to beginners, who enjoy the indoor confines of Wheeler’s Observation Building.
In addition to the sandhills, visitors often see whooping cranes, ducks, geese and raptors. Bald eagle sightings are rare, but possible. Festival of the Cranes staff and volunteers are available in the Observation Building to answer visitor questions.
Conservationist and crane expert Christopher Joe will host a bird walk on Friday, January 10th at 3 p.m., at Wheeler.
The Princess Theatre in downtown Decatur will host several free programs during the festival, including Wings to Soar, an educational program about the role birds of prey hold in nature. The event also allows participants to view birds of prey up close. That event is set for Saturday, January 11th at 9 a.m.
Andy Caven, Vice President of the International Crane Foundation, will host an educational program Saturday, January 11th at 9 a.m., at the Alabama Center for the Arts’ Visual Arts Building.
Vicky Smith, affectionately nicknamed ‘The Bat Lady,’ will present ‘Batty About Bats’ from 9:30-10:30 a.m., Saturday, January 11th at the Alabama Center for the Arts’ Performing Arts Building.
Naturalist, storyteller and wildlife artist Brian ‘Fox’ Ellis will present his program about his adventures in the wilds of America at 10:30 a.m., at the Princess.
At 11:30 a.m., back at the Alabama Center for the Arts’ Performing Arts Building, Dr. Matthew Niemiller will present a program on Wheeler’s cave life and its unique diversity.
Dr. Jon Armbruster will discuss Auburn’s 83 million year old dinosaur egg that was discovered 54 years ago near Selma. That program is set for 1 p.m., at the Alabama Center for the Arts.
At 2 p.m., the Alabama Center for the Arts will host ‘Nestwatch,’ a program by scientist Robyn Bailey where she will discuss how ordinary people around the world contribute important bird observations to long-term databases.
For more information on the 2025 Festival of the Cranes, visit www.friendsofwheelerwr.org.
