MONTE VISTA — The 36th Annual Monte Vista Crane Festival is headed to Monte Vista on March 8-10 in celebration of the spring arrival of some 25,000 Sandhill Cranes in the San Luis Valley.

Wildlife lovers and birders alike flock to the event every year to bear witness to one of nature’s most inspiring wildlife phenomena. Due to recent weather, this year should offer particularly stunning vistas of cranes against the snow-capped peaks of the rugged Sangre de Cristo Mountains---it’s every photographer’s dream.

The festival offers a variety of nature-oriented activities, from crane-viewing tours to bird walks, wildlife talks, specialty tours and a craft and nature fair that will again have an educational display of live, un-releasable birds from the raptor rehabilitation group Hawks Aloft.This year’s specialty tours visit an archaeological site discovered on the refuge, highlights along the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area and the Colorado Farm Brewery---where folks can see the inner workings of Colorado’s only field-to-glass brewery, taste the brewery’s unique estate beer and see cranes along the way. There are also photography and Sandhill Crane painting workshops with the renowned wildlife photographer Ed MacKerrow and award-winning artist Susan McCullough.

Limited space is still available for the crane-viewing tours, Colorado Farm Brewery tours and photography and painting workshops. Crane tours are $7 per person. The farm brewery tours cost $20. And the photography and painting workshops are $125 and $35, respectively.

This year’s nature talks will again take place at the Vali 3 Theater in Monte Vista, covering everything from Sandhill Crane migration to a 3D Tour of the Valley highlighting the area’s oft-violent geologic past. This year’s movies include Turtle the Incredible Journey, following one female loggerhead’s ancestral migratory path; and Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time, the story of one scientist’s extraordinary career and how he shaped conservation in the twentieth century.

For schedule information and tickets, visit mvcranefest.org or call 720-940-7561. Registration deadline is March 7. The nature talks and movies are free of charge. First come, first seated. For information on the photography workshops, visit inlightofnature.com.

For information on McCullough’s paintings classes, visit paint-a-rita.com.