Our first outing of the new year was to the Vancouver Lake Lowlands for a tour of the Sandhill Cranes wintering habitat, given by the Columbia Land Trust. Accompanied by the intrepid Rosa, we stayed with the cranes as long as we could in the cold wet weather, and then headed up to the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge for a circuit around their auto-tour before the early winter sunset. Four days later, during a break in the rain, Nancy and I returned first thing in the morning, to find the river socked in with fog. We sidetracked for a walk along Vancouver Lake, and then returned to the river to spend the rest of the cold sunny morning with the cranes.

Nancy wrote about this outing on her blog.