NEWS RELEASE
Jan. 13, 2025
WILLCOX, Ariz. – The Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) will once again sponsor the annual Wings Over Willcox Birding & Nature Festival. This year’s event, which runs from Jan. 16 to Jan. 19, includes a free Nature Expo at the Willcox Community Center and celebrates the return of thousands of migratory sandhill cranes that stop off to call southeast Arizona their home for the winter.
From indoor activities like learning about birdwatching and monarch butterflies to outdoor field trips to AZGFD’s Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area and other wildlife viewing spots, the event has something for every birding and nature enthusiast.
Visit www.wingsoverwillcox.com to plan your trip – and don’t forget to save time at 11 a.m. on Saturday to check out AZGFD’s presentation at the Nature Expo on the recent history of borderlands jaguars. The talk is free and open to the public.
Each year before the Willcox event, AZGFD biologists perform a crane count. This year’s count estimates 38,707 cranes, with the largest concentration near Willcox Playa. The 23,522 cranes there include those roosting at Arizona Electric Power Cooperative’s (AEPCO)’s Apache Station and Cochise Lake, both in Willcox. Other locations surveyed include AZGFD’s Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area near McNeal with 12,209 cranes, the Gila River Corridor with 2,461 cranes, Crane Lake with 421 cranes and Bonita with 94 cranes.
The cranes usually fly out as a group at dawn to feed, gleaning grain from farmers’ fields. Most of the cranes follow this feeding pattern, but some linger in or near their roosts. Most return from feeding between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. The cranes typically begin to arrive mid-September to early October. They begin to leave around mid-February, sometimes departing all at once, but others may stay until the middle of March.